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Python Regular Expressions in Python Introduction to Regular Expressions Word Length

Rabih Atallah
Rabih Atallah
3,405 Points

wrong script

Please why is my regex script wrong. Im trying to return a list of words of 'nb characters' each from the string strg

word_length.py
import re

# EXAMPLE:
# >>> find_words(4, "dog, cat, baby, balloon, me")
# ['baby', 'balloon']
def find_words(nb, strg):
  return re.findall(r'\w{nb,}', strg)

1 Answer

Chris Freeman
MOD
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,441 Points

In your regex string "nb" is a two character string, not a variable. Try this as your regex string:

r'\w{{{0},}}'.format(nb)

Since format() uses curly braces as field markers, you use double-curlies {{ and }} to escape them. {0} is the field replaced by format()

Rabih Atallah
Rabih Atallah
3,405 Points

Thanks again! that was really helpful...