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Python Regular Expressions in Python Introduction to Regular Expressions Players Dictionary and Class

Posted by David Hackett
David Hackett
3,191 Points

More regex woes!

So the tricky one of the double names has caught me,

I have the optional [\s\w] in, which seems to do the trick on just a string name- so not sure why it isn't working here!

... any help much appreciated

players.py 
import re

string = '''Love, Kenneth: 20
Chalkley, Andrew: 25
McFarland, Dave: 10
Kesten, Joy: 22
Stewart Pinchback, Pinckney Benton: 18'''

players = re.search(r'''
  ^(?P<last_name>\w+[\s\w+]),\s
  (?P<first_name>\w+[\s\w+]):\s
  (?P<score>\d+)?$
''', string, re.X|re.M)

1 Answer

Dan Johnson
Dan Johnson
40,533 Points
Dan Johnson
Dan Johnson
40,533 Points

An optional match (that is one or zero occurrences) is denoted with the ?. The expression, [\s\w] is a character class that will match exactly one of either a space or letter. So if you wanted it to be an optional space or letter you'd want [\s\w]?

However for this challenge you just need to look for the optional space between two words. One solution would be \w+\s?\w*

Note that using + in a character class will attempt to match the literal + rather than a one or more of the preceding character.

David Hackett
David Hackett
3,191 Points

Thanks, great answer Dan... I took and re-look over the regex symbology and have it a lot more right in my head now - cheers :)