if its *NOT* an exercise in re, and if input is a bunch of lines within '{' and '}' and each line is key="value" pairs, I would not go near re. instead simply parse keys and array of values into a dictionary, and process them from the dictionary as below, and the key option correctly has 2 entries 'value' and '7' in the right order. will work with any input... # assuming variable s has the string...... s = """{ option=value foo=bar another=42 option=7 }"""
>>> for line in s.split(): .. ix = line.find('=') .. if ix >= 0: .. key = line[:ix] .. val = line[ix + 1: ] .. try: .. data[key].append(val) .. except KeyError: .. data.setdefault(key, [val]) .. >>> >>> >>> for k, v in data.items(): .. print 'key=%s val=%s' % (k, v) .. .. key=foo val=['bar'] key=option val=['value', '7'] key=another val=['42'] with another dictionary of keys to be processed with a function to process values for that key, its a matter of iterating over keys.. hope that simplifies and helps.. thx Edwin -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, August 10, 2008 8:30 AM To: python-list@python.org Subject: regular expression extracting groups Hi list, I'm trying to use regular expressions to help me quickly extract the contents of messages that my application will receive. I have worked out most of the regex but the last section of the message has me stumped. This is mostly because I want to pull the content out into regex groups that I can easily access later. I have a regex to extract the key/value pairs but it ends up with only the contents of the last key/value pair encountered. An example of the section of the message that is troubling me appears like this: { option=value foo=bar another=42 option=7 } So it's basically a bunch of lines. Every line is terminated with a '\n' character. The number of key/value fields changes depending on the particular message. Also notice that there are two 'option' keys. This is allowable and I need to cater for it. A couple of example messages are: xpl-stat\n{\nhop=1\nsource=vendor-device.instance\ntarget=*\n} \nhbeat.basic\n{\ninterval=10\n}\n xpl-stat\n{\nhop=1\nsource=vendor-device.instance\ntarget=vendor- device.instance\n}\nconfig.list\n{\nreconf=newconf\noption=interval \noption=group[16]\noption=filter[16]\n}\n As all messages follow the same pattern I'm hoping to develop a generic regex, instead of one for each message kind - because there are many, that can pull a message from a received packet. The regex I came up with looks like this: # This should match any xPL message GROUP_MESSAGE_TYPE = 'message_type' GROUP_HOP = 'hop' GROUP_SOURCE = 'source' GROUP_TARGET = 'target' GROUP_SRC_VENDOR_ID = 'source_vendor_id' GROUP_SRC_DEVICE_ID = 'source_device_id' GROUP_SRC_INSTANCE_ID = 'source_instance_id' GROUP_TGT_VENDOR_ID = 'target_vendor_id' GROUP_TGT_DEVICE_ID = 'target_device_id' GROUP_TGT_INSTANCE_ID = 'target_instance_id' GROUP_IDENTIFIER_TYPE = 'identifier_type' GROUP_SCHEMA = 'schema' GROUP_SCHEMA_CLASS = 'schema_class' GROUP_SCHEMA_TYPE = 'schema_type' GROUP_OPTION_KEY = 'key' GROUP_OPTION_VALUE = 'value' XplMessageGroupsRe = r'''(?P<%s>xpl-(cmnd|stat|trig)) \n # message type \ {\n # hop=(?P<%s>[1-9]{1}) \n # hop count source=(?P<%s>(?P<%s>[a-z0-9]{1,8})-(?P<%s>[a-z0-9]{1,8})\.(?P< %s>[a-z0-9]{1,16}))\n # source identifier target=(?P<%s>(\*|(?P<%s>[a-z0-9]{1,8})-(?P<%s>[a-z0-9]{1,8})\.(?P< %s>[a-z0-9]{1,16})))\n # target identifier \} \n # (?P<%s>(?P<%s>[a-z0-9]{1,8})\.(?P<%s>[a-z0-9]{1,8}))\n # schema \ {\n # (?:(?P<%s>[a-z0-9\-]{1,16})=(?P<%s>[\x20-\x7E]{0,128})\n){1,64} # key/value pairs \}\n''' % (GROUP_MESSAGE_TYPE, GROUP_HOP, GROUP_SOURCE, GROUP_SRC_VENDOR_ID, GROUP_SRC_DEVICE_ID, GROUP_SRC_INSTANCE_ID, GROUP_TARGET, GROUP_TGT_VENDOR_ID, GROUP_TGT_DEVICE_ID, GROUP_TGT_INSTANCE_ID, GROUP_SCHEMA, GROUP_SCHEMA_CLASS, GROUP_SCHEMA_TYPE, GROUP_OPTION_KEY, GROUP_OPTION_VALUE) XplMessageGroups = re.compile(XplMessageGroupsRe, re.VERBOSE | re.DOTALL) If I pass the second example message through this regex the 'key' group ends up containing 'option' and the 'value' group ends up containing 'filter[16]' which are the last key/value pairs in that message. So the problem I have lies in the key/value regex extraction section. It handles multiple occurrences of the pattern and writes the content into the single key/value group hence I can't extract and access all fields. Is there some other way to do this which allows me to store all the key/value pairs into the regex match object for later retrieval? Perhaps using the standard unnamed number groups? Thanks, Chris -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list The information contained in this message and any attachment may be proprietary, confidential, and privileged or subject to the work product doctrine and thus protected from disclosure. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify me immediately by replying to this message and deleting it and all copies and backups thereof. Thank you. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list