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Python Regular Expressions in Python Introduction to Regular Expressions Negation

Mona Jalal
Mona Jalal
4,302 Points
Posted by Mona Jalal
Mona Jalal
4,302 Points

regex doesn't work

why the following returns nothing?

print(re.findall(r'''
                 \b
                 [-\w]*
                 \s
                 [-\w ]+
                 [^\t\n]
                 \b
                 ''', names))

1 Answer

Seth Kroger
Seth Kroger
56,413 Points
Seth Kroger
Seth Kroger
56,413 Points

Whenever you split up the RegEx onto lines for readability you need to use the re.VERBOSE option to tell it to ignore the extra whitespace. Otherwise it will think all that whitespace is supposed to part of the pattern and try to match to it.

print(re.findall(r'''
                 \b
                 [-\w]*
                 \s
                 [-\w ]+
                 [^\t\n]
                 \b
                 ''', names, re.VERBOSE))