> Hello, > > The following code returns 'abc123abc45abc789jk'. How do I revise the pattern > so > that the return value will be 'abc789jk'? In other words, I want to find the > pattern 'abc' that is closest to 'jk'. Here the string '123', '45' and '789' > are > just examples. They are actually quite different in the string that I'm > working > with. > > import re > s = 'abc123abc45abc789jk' > p = r'abc.+jk' > lst = re.findall(p, s) > print lst[0]
I suggest using r'abc.+?jk' instead. the additional ? makes the preceeding '.+' non-greedy so instead of matching as long string as it can it matches as short string as possible. _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
