apologies for spamming and Sorry my bad the solution suggested by MRAB works fine : )
with open("/tmp/2.repo","r") as f: for line in f: for line in f: result = re.search(r'MSG=attempt to record(.*)LINSNAP', line) if result: subpatterns = [r'(?P<Block>(\d+,\d+,\d+:\d+))', r'(?P<p_owner>([0-9a-fA-F]+:[0-9a-fA-F]+:[0-9a-fA-F]+::HEAD))', r'(?P<a_owner>(owner:\s+[0-9a-fA-F]+:[0-9a-fA-F]+:[0-9a-fA-F]+::HEAD))', '.'] pattern = '(%s)*' % '|'.join(subpatterns) match = re.search(pattern, line) print ' ', match.groupdict() Regards, Ganesh -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list