reusing parts of a string in RE matches?

[John Salerno]

I probably should find an RE group to post to, but my news server at
work doesn't seem to have one, so I apologize. But this is in Python
anyway :)

So my question is, how can find all occurrences of a pattern in a
string, including overlapping matches? I figure it has something to do
with look-ahead and look-behind, but I've only gotten this far:

import re
string = 'ababababababab ab'
pattern = re.compile(r'ab (?=a)')
m = pattern.findall (string)

This matches all the 'ab' followed by an 'a', but it doesn't include the
'a'. What I'd like to do is find all the 'aba' matches. A regular
findall() gives four results, but really there are seven.

Is there a way to do this with just an RE pattern, or would I have to
manually add the 'a' to the end of the matches?

Thanks.

[Murali]

John Salerno wrote:

So my question is, how can find all occurrences of a pattern in a
string, including overlapping matches? I figure it has something to do
with look-ahead and look-behind, but I've only gotten this far:

import re
string = 'ababababababab ab'
pattern = re.compile(r'ab (?=a)')
m = pattern.findall (string)

Why not something like

import re
string = 'ababababababab ab'
pattern = re.compile(r"^a ba")
ans = []
for x in xrange(len(stri ng)):
m = pattern.match(s tring[x:])
if m: ans.append( (x+m.start(),x+ m.end()))

# now ans is a list of pairs (p,q) where the substring string[p:q]
matches pattern

- Murali

[Bo Yang]

John Salerno 写�:

I probably should find an RE group to post to, but my news server at
work doesn't seem to have one, so I apologize. But this is in Python
anyway :)

So my question is, how can find all occurrences of a pattern in a
string, including overlapping matches? I figure it has something to do
with look-ahead and look-behind, but I've only gotten this far:

import re
string = 'ababababababab ab'
pattern = re.compile(r'ab (?=a)')
Below from the python library reference

*|(?=...)|*
Matches if ... matches next, but doesn't consume any of the string.
This is called a lookahead assertion. For example, Isaac (?=Asimov)
will match |'Isaac '| only if it's followed by |'Asimov'|.
m = pattern.findall (string)

This matches all the 'ab' followed by an 'a', but it doesn't include the
'a'. What I'd like to do is find all the 'aba' matches. A regular
findall() gives four results, but really there are seven.

I try the code , but I give seven results ! Is there a way to do this with just an RE pattern, or would I have to
manually add the 'a' to the end of the matches?

Thanks.

[BartlebyScrivener]

Right about now somebody usually jumps in and shows you how to do this
without using regex and using string methods instead.

I'll watch.

rd

[John Salerno]

Bo Yang wrote:

This matches all the 'ab' followed by an 'a', but it doesn't include
the 'a'. What I'd like to do is find all the 'aba' matches. A regular
findall() gives four results, but really there are seven.

I try the code , but I give seven results !

Sorry, I meant that findall() only returns 4 results when searching for
'aba', when there are actually seven instances of 'aba'. This doesn't
involve the look-ahead RE.

[John Salerno]

BartlebyScriven er wrote:

Right about now somebody usually jumps in and shows you how to do this
without using regex and using string methods instead.

I'll watch.

rd

Heh heh, I'm sure you're right, but this is more just an exercise for me
in REs, so I'm curious how you might do it, unless the answer is that
it's just too complicated to be worth it (like Murali's example!) That
goes beyond just an RE pattern.

[BartlebyScrivener]

I have to at least try :)

s = "ababababababab ab"

for x in range(len(s)):
.... try:
.... s.index("aba", x, x + 3)
.... except ValueError:
.... pass

rd

[John Salerno]

BartlebyScriven er wrote:

I have to at least try :)

s = "ababababababab ab"

for x in range(len(s)):
... try:
... s.index("aba", x, x + 3)
... except ValueError:
... pass

rd

yeah, looks like index() or find() can be used to do it instead of RE,
but still, i'd like to know if there's a way you can write an RE
expression to do it (and just an RE expression, without all the other
for loops and extra nonsense...othe rwise i might as well just use string
methods)

[mpeters42]

>From the Python 2.4 docs:

findall( pattern, string[, flags])
Return a list of all ***non-overlapping*** matches of pattern in
string....

By design, the regex functions return non-overlapping patterns.

Without doing some kind of looping, I think you are out of luck.

If you pattern is fixed, then a solution might be:

string = 'ababababababab ab'
pat = 'aba'
[pat for s in re.compile('(?= '+pat+')').find all(string)] ['aba', 'aba', 'aba', 'aba', 'aba', 'aba', 'aba']

If the pattern is not fixed (i.e. 'a.a') then this method can still get
a count of overlapping matches, but cannot get the individual match
strings themselves.

A simple loop should do in this case, though:
for i in range(len(strin g)):

.... r= re.match(pat,st ring[i:])
.... if r: print r.group()
....
aba
aba
aba
aba
aba
aba
aba

[BartlebyScrivener]

>> otherwise i might as well just use string

methods

I think you're supposed to use string methods if you can, to avoid the
old adage about having two problems instead of one when using regex.

rd