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Python Regular Expressions in Python Introduction to Regular Expressions Negation

Posted by Manyung Tah
Manyung Tah
7,445 Points

regex negation help?

Why does print(re.findall(r'[\w]+[^hey]+', 'hey1234')) return 'hey1234' when I have included [^hey] to ignore the 'hey'? I thought it would return '1234'.

I understand that 'print(re.findall(r'[\w]+[^hey]+', 'hey1234'))' means match 1 or more occurrences of any number, letter, underscore that doesn't include 1 or more occurences of the letters h,e,y.

I know print(re.findall(r'[^hey]+','hey1234')) will return 1234 but why doesn't print(re.findall(r'[\w]+[^hey]+', 'hey1234'))?

1 Answer

Chris Freeman
MOD
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,441 Points
Chris Freeman
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,441 Points

Good question! The [\w]+[^hey]+ says 1 or more alphanumeric character followed by 1 or more characters that are not “h”, “e”, or “y”.

  • The first part [\w]+ matches “hey123” as they’re all alphanumeric characters
  • The second part [^hey]+ matches “4” since it is not “h”, “e”, or “y”.

If you drop the first + to make the first part [\w], then the pattern would return “y1234” since “y” is the first alphanumeric character that isn’t followed by “h”, “e”, or “y”.

Post back if you need more help. Good luck!!!

Manyung Tah
Manyung Tah
7,445 Points

Thank you so much for your explanation!! I understand it now :)