How can I get part of regex match as a variable in python?

Question

In Perl it is possible to do something like this (I hope the syntax is right...):

$string =~ m/lalala(I want this part)lalala/; $whatIWant = $1; 

I want to do the same in Python and get the text inside the parenthesis in a string like $1.

Answer 1

If you want to get parts by name you can also do this:

>>> m = re.match(r"(?P<first_name>\w+) (?P<last_name>\w+)", "Malcom Reynolds") >>> m.groupdict() {'first_name': 'Malcom', 'last_name': 'Reynolds'} 

The example was taken from the re docs

Answer 2

See: Python regex match objects

>>> import re >>> p = re.compile("lalala(I want this part)lalala") >>> p.match("lalalaI want this partlalala").group(1) 'I want this part'