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30 Days Of Python: Day 18 - Regular Expressions

Twitter Follow Author: Asabeneh Yetayeh
First Edition: Nov 22 - Dec 22, 2019

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30DaysOfPython

📘 Day 18

Regular Expressions

A regular expression or RegEx is a special text string that helps to find patterns in data. A RegEx can be used to check if some pattern exists in a different data type. To use RegEx in python first we should import the RegEx module which is called re.

The re Module

After importing the module we can use it to detect or find patterns.

import re

Methods in re Module

To find a pattern we use different set of re character sets that allows to search for a match in a string.

  • re.match(): searches only in the beginning of the first line of the string and returns matched objects if found, else returns None.
  • re.search: Returns a match object if there is one anywhere in the string, including multiline strings.
  • re.findall: Returns a list containing all matches
  • re.split: Takes a string, splits it at the match points, returns a list
  • re.sub: Replaces one or many matches within a string

Match

# syntac
re.match(substring, string, re.I)
# substring is a string or a pattern, string is the text we look for a pattern , re.I is case ignore

import re

txt = 'I love to teach python and javaScript'
# It returns an object with span, and match
match = re.match('I love to teach', txt, re.I)
print(match)  # <re.Match object; span=(0, 15), match='I love to teach'>
# We can get the starting and ending position of the match as tuple using span
span = match.span()
print(span)     # (0, 15)
# Lets find the start and stop position from the span
start, end = span
print(start, end)  # 0, 15
substring = txt[start:end]
print(substring)       # I love to teach

As you can see from the example above, the pattern we are looking for (or the substring we are looking for) is I love to teach. The match function returns an object only if the text starts with the pattern.

import re

txt = 'I love to teach python and javaScript'
match = re.match('I like to teach', txt, re.I)
print(match)  # None

The string does not string with I like to teach, therefore there was no match and the match method returned None.

# syntax
re.match(substring, string, re.I)
# substring is a pattern, string is the text we look for a pattern , re.I is case ignore flag

import re

txt = '''Python is the most beautiful language that a human being has ever created.
I recommend python for a first programming language'''

# It returns an object with span and match
match = re.search('first', txt, re.I)
print(match)  # <re.Match object; span=(100, 105), match='first'>
# We can get the starting and ending position of the match as tuple using span
span = match.span()
print(span)     # (100, 105)
# Lets find the start and stop position from the span
start, end = span
print(start, end)  # 100 105
substring = txt[start:end]
print(substring)       # first

As you can see, search is much better than match because it can look for the pattern throughout the text. Search returns a match object with a first match that was found, otherwise it returns None. A much better re function is findall. This function checks for the pattern through the whole string and returns all the matches as a list.

Searching for All Matches Using findall

findall() returns all the matches as a list

txt = '''Python is the most beautiful language that a human being has ever created.
I recommend python for a first programming language'''

# It return a list
matches = re.findall('language', txt, re.I)
print(matches)  # ['language', 'language']

As you can see, the word language was found two times in the string. Let us practice some more. Now we will look for both Python and python words in the string:

txt = '''Python is the most beautiful language that a human being has ever created.
I recommend python for a first programming language'''

# It returns list
matches = re.findall('python', txt, re.I)
print(matches)  # ['Python', 'python']

Since we are using re.I both lowercase and uppercase letters are included. If we do not have the re.I flag, then we will have to write our pattern differently. Let us check it out:

txt = '''Python is the most beautiful language that a human being has ever created.
I recommend python for a first programming language'''

matches = re.findall('Python|python', txt)
print(matches)  # ['Python', 'python']

#
matches = re.findall('[Pp]ython', txt)
print(matches)  # ['Python', 'python']

Replacing a Substring

txt = '''Python is the most beautiful language that a human being has ever created.
I recommend python for a first programming language'''

match_replaced = re.sub('Python|python', 'JavaScript', txt, re.I)
print(match_replaced)  # JavaScript is the most beautiful language that a human being has ever created.
# OR
match_replaced = re.sub('[Pp]ython', 'JavaScript', txt, re.I)
print(match_replaced)  # JavaScript is the most beautiful language that a human being has ever created.

Let us add one more example. The following string is really hard to read unless we remove the % symbol. Replacing the % with an empty string will clean the text.

txt = '''%I a%m te%%a%%che%r% a%n%d %% I l%o%ve te%ach%ing. 
T%he%re i%s n%o%th%ing as r%ewarding a%s e%duc%at%i%ng a%n%d e%m%p%ow%er%ing p%e%o%ple.
I fo%und te%a%ching m%ore i%n%t%er%%es%ting t%h%an any other %jobs. 
D%o%es thi%s m%ot%iv%a%te %y%o%u to b%e a t%e%a%cher?'''

matches = re.sub('%', '', txt)
print(matches)

I am teacher and I love teaching.
There is nothing as rewarding as educating and empowering people. 
I found teaching more interesting than any other jobs. Does this motivate you to be a teacher?

Splitting Text Using RegEx Split

txt = '''I am teacher and  I love teaching.
There is nothing as rewarding as educating and empowering people.
I found teaching more interesting than any other jobs.
Does this motivate you to be a teacher?'''
print(re.split('\n', txt)) # splitting using \n - end of line symbol

['I am teacher and  I love teaching.', 'There is nothing as rewarding as educating and empowering people.', 'I found teaching more interesting than any other jobs.', 'Does this motivate you to be a teacher?']

Writing RegEx Patterns

To declare a string variable we use a single or double quote. To declare RegEx variable r''. The following pattern only identifies apple with lowercase, to make it case insensitive either we should rewrite our pattern or we should add a flag. 

import re

regex_pattern = r'apple'
txt = 'Apple and banana are fruits. An old cliche says an apple a day a doctor way has been replaced by a banana a day keeps the doctor far far away. '
matches = re.findall(regex_pattern, txt)
print(matches)  # ['apple']

# To make case insensitive adding flag '
matches = re.findall(regex_pattern, txt, re.I)
print(matches)  # ['Apple', 'apple']
# or we can use a set of characters method
regex_pattern = r'[Aa]pple'  # this mean the first letter could be Apple or apple
matches = re.findall(regex_pattern, txt)
print(matches)  # ['Apple', 'apple']
  • []: A set of characters
  • [a-c] means, a or b or c
  • [a-z] means, any letter from a to z
  • [A-Z] means, any character from A to Z
  • [0-3] means, 0 or 1 or 2 or 3
  • [0-9] means any number from 0 to 9
  • [A-Za-z0-9] any single character, that is a to z, A to Z or 0 to 9
  • \: uses to escape special characters
  • \d means: match where the string contains digits (numbers from 0-9)
  • \D means: match where the string does not contain digits
  • . : any character except new line character(\n)
  • ^: starts with
  • r'^substring' eg r'^love', a sentence that starts with a word love
  • r'[^abc] means not a, not b, not c.
  • $: ends with
  • r'substring$' eg r'love$', sentence that ends with a word love
  • *: zero or more times
  • r'[a]*' means a optional or it can occur many times.
  • +: one or more times
  • r'[a]+' means at least once (or more)
  • ?: zero or one time
  • r'[a]?' means zero times or once
  • {3}: Exactly 3 characters
  • {3,}: At least 3 characters
  • {3,8}: 3 to 8 characters
  • |: Either or
  • r'apple|banana' means either apple or a banana
  • (): Capture and group

Regular Expression cheat sheet

Let us use examples to clarify the meta characters above

Square Bracket

Let us use square bracket to include lower and upper case

regex_pattern = r'[Aa]pple' # this square bracket mean either A or a
txt = 'Apple and banana are fruits. An old cliche says an apple a day a doctor way has been replaced by a banana a day keeps the doctor far far away.'
matches = re.findall(regex_pattern, txt)
print(matches)  # ['Apple', 'apple']

If we want to look for the banana, we write the pattern as follows:

regex_pattern = r'[Aa]pple|[Bb]anana' # this square bracket means either A or a
txt = 'Apple and banana are fruits. An old cliche says an apple a day a doctor way has been replaced by a banana a day keeps the doctor far far away.'
matches = re.findall(regex_pattern, txt)
print(matches)  # ['Apple', 'banana', 'apple', 'banana']

Using the square bracket and or operator , we manage to extract Apple, apple, Banana and banana.

Escape character(\) in RegEx

regex_pattern = r'\d'  # d is a special character which means digits
txt = 'This regular expression example was made on December 6,  2019 and revised on July 8, 2021'
matches = re.findall(regex_pattern, txt)
print(matches)  # ['6', '2', '0', '1', '9', '8', '2', '0', '2', '1'], this is not what we want

One or more times(+)

regex_pattern = r'\d+'  # d is a special character which means digits, + mean one or more times
txt = 'This regular expression example was made on December 6,  2019 and revised on July 8, 2021'
matches = re.findall(regex_pattern, txt)
print(matches)  # ['6', '2019', '8', '2021'] - now, this is better!

Period(.)

regex_pattern = r'[a].'  # this square bracket means a and . means any character except new line
txt = '''Apple and banana are fruits'''
matches = re.findall(regex_pattern, txt)
print(matches)  # ['an', 'an', 'an', 'a ', 'ar']

regex_pattern = r'[a].+'  # . any character, + any character one or more times 
matches = re.findall(regex_pattern, txt)
print(matches)  # ['and banana are fruits']

Zero or more times(*)

Zero or many times. The pattern could may not occur or it can occur many times.

regex_pattern = r'[a].*'  # . any character, * any character zero or more times 
txt = '''Apple and banana are fruits'''
matches = re.findall(regex_pattern, txt)
print(matches)  # ['and banana are fruits']

Zero or one time(?)

Zero or one time. The pattern may not occur or it may occur once.

txt = '''I am not sure if there is a convention how to write the word e-mail.
Some people write it as email others may write it as Email or E-mail.'''
regex_pattern = r'[Ee]-?mail'  # ? means here that '-' is optional
matches = re.findall(regex_pattern, txt)
print(matches)  # ['e-mail', 'email', 'Email', 'E-mail']

Quantifier in RegEx

We can specify the length of the substring we are looking for in a text, using a curly bracket. Let us imagine, we are interested in a substring with a length of 4 characters:

txt = 'This regular expression example was made on December 6,  2019 and revised on July 8, 2021'
regex_pattern = r'\d{4}'  # exactly four times
matches = re.findall(regex_pattern, txt)
print(matches)  # ['2019', '2021']

txt = 'This regular expression example was made on December 6,  2019 and revised on July 8, 2021'
regex_pattern = r'\d{1, 4}'   # 1 to 4
matches = re.findall(regex_pattern, txt)
print(matches)  # ['6', '2019', '8', '2021']

Cart ^

  • Starts with
txt = 'This regular expression example was made on December 6,  2019 and revised on July 8, 2021'
regex_pattern = r'^This'  # ^ means starts with
matches = re.findall(regex_pattern, txt)
print(matches)  # ['This']
  • Negation
txt = 'This regular expression example was made on December 6,  2019 and revised on July 8, 2021'
regex_pattern = r'[^A-Za-z ]+'  # ^ in set character means negation, not A to Z, not a to z, no space
matches = re.findall(regex_pattern, txt)
print(matches)  # ['6,', '2019', '8', '2021']

💻 Exercises: Day 18

Exercises: Level 1

  1. What is the most frequent word in the following paragraph?
    paragraph = 'I love teaching. If you do not love teaching what else can you love. I love Python if you do not love something which can give you all the capabilities to develop an application what else can you love.

    [
    (6, 'love'),
    (5, 'you'),
    (3, 'can'),
    (2, 'what'),
    (2, 'teaching'),
    (2, 'not'),
    (2, 'else'),
    (2, 'do'),
    (2, 'I'),
    (1, 'which'),
    (1, 'to'),
    (1, 'the'),
    (1, 'something'),
    (1, 'if'),
    (1, 'give'),
    (1, 'develop'),
    (1, 'capabilities'),
    (1, 'application'),
    (1, 'an'),
    (1, 'all'),
    (1, 'Python'),
    (1, 'If')
    ]
  1. The position of some particles on the horizontal x-axis are -12, -4, -3 and -1 in the negative direction, 0 at origin, 4 and 8 in the positive direction. Extract these numbers from this whole text and find the distance between the two furthest particles.
points = ['-12', '-4', '-3', '-1', '0', '4', '8']
sorted_points =  [-12, -4, -3, -1, -1, 0, 2, 4, 8]
distance = 8 -(-12) # 20

Exercises: Level 2

  1. Write a pattern which identifies if a string is a valid python variable

    is_valid_variable('first_name') # True
is_valid_variable('first-name') # False
is_valid_variable('1first_name') # False
is_valid_variable('firstname') # True

Exercises: Level 3

  1. Clean the following text. After cleaning, count three most frequent words in the string.

    sentence = '''%I $am@% a %tea@cher%, &and& I lo%#ve %tea@ching%;. There $is nothing; &as& mo@re rewarding as educa@ting &and& @emp%o@wering peo@ple. ;I found tea@ching m%o@re interesting tha@n any other %jo@bs. %Do@es thi%s mo@tivate yo@u to be a tea@cher!?'''

print(clean_text(sentence));
I am a teacher and I love teaching There is nothing as more rewarding as educating and empowering people I found teaching more interesting than any other jobs Does this motivate you to be a teacher
print(most_frequent_words(cleaned_text)) # [(3, 'I'), (2, 'teaching'), (2, 'teacher')]

🎉 CONGRATULATIONS ! 🎉

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