On Fri, 08 May 2009 00:51:14 +0100, Rajanikanth Jammalamadaka
<rajanika...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi
I have a text file as follows:
testName = (
someParam = value1
anotherParam = (value2, value3)
)
how do I write a regular expression to get all the contents of the
file which are between the first and last parentheses.
You don't, or at least you don't without some cast-iron guarantees
that your file will look *exactly* like this. If you can guarantee
that, then this should work:
import re
f = open(filename)
data = f.read()
m = re.match(r"""[^(]*\( # Find the first open parenthesis
(.*) # Gobble up everything...
\)[^)]*$ # ...to the last close paren""",
data, re.X)
if m:
print m.group(1)
Notice that this will do *exactly* what you asked; pick up
everything between the first and the last parentheses. In
particular, if your text looks like this:
testName1 = (
someParam1 = value1
anotherParam1 = (value2, value3)
)
testName2 = (
sameParam2 = value4
)
...then what you'll get out is:
someParam1 = value1
anotherParam1 = (value2, value3)
)
testName2 = (
sameParam2 = value4
You can't get around that with regular expressions, you'll
have to parse your way through the input string counting
open and close parentheses as you go.
--
Rhodri James *-* Wildebeeste Herder to the Masses
--
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