check object being a compiled regular expression

[Helmut Jarausch]

Hi,
sorry, this seems to be a FAQ but I couldn't find anything

I need to check if an object is a compiled regular expression

Say
import re
RX= re.compile('^something')

how to test

"if RX is a compiled regular expression"

type(RX) says
<type '_sre.SRE_Pattern'>

but

if isinstance(RX,_sre.SRE_Pattern)
and
if isinstance(RX,re._sre.SRE_Pattern)
both fail.

Many thanks for a hint,

Helmut Jarausch

Lehrstuhl fuer Numerische Mathematik
RWTH - Aachen University
D 52056 Aachen, Germany

[James Thiele]

This is crude, but works:

import re
RX= re.compile('^something')
str(RX).find("<_sre.SRE_Pattern") == 0

True

[Diez B. Roggisch]

Helmut Jarausch schrieb:

Hi,
sorry, this seems to be a FAQ but I couldn't find anything

I need to check if an object is a compiled regular expression

Say
import re
RX= re.compile('^something')

how to test

"if RX is a compiled regular expression"

type(RX) says
<type '_sre.SRE_Pattern'>

but

if isinstance(RX,_sre.SRE_Pattern)
and
if isinstance(RX,re._sre.SRE_Pattern)
both fail.

Many thanks for a hint,

Just invoke type on a compiled expression and store that:

Python 2.4.1 (#2, Mar 31 2005, 00:05:10)
[GCC 3.3 20030304 (Apple Computer, Inc. build 1666)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
Welcome to rlcompleter2 0.96
for nice experiences hit <tab> multiple times

import re
re_type = type(re.compile("foo"))
isinstance(re.compile("bar"), re_type) True

Diez