How do I return a string from a regex match in python? [duplicate]

Question

I am running through lines in a text file using a python script. I want to search for an img tag within the text document and return the tag as text.

When I run the regex re.match(line) it returns a _sre.SRE_MATCH object. How do I get it to return a string?

import sys import string import re  f = open("sample.txt", 'r' ) l = open('writetest.txt', 'w')  count = 1  for line in f:     line = line.rstrip()     imgtag  = re.match(r'<img.*?>',line)     print("yo it's a {}".format(imgtag)) 

When run it prints:

yo it's a None yo it's a None yo it's a None yo it's a <_sre.SRE_Match object at 0x7fd4ea90e578> yo it's a None yo it's a <_sre.SRE_Match object at 0x7fd4ea90e578> yo it's a None yo it's a <_sre.SRE_Match object at 0x7fd4ea90e578> yo it's a <_sre.SRE_Match object at 0x7fd4ea90e5e0> yo it's a None yo it's a None 

Answer 1

You should use re.MatchObject.group(0). Like

imtag = re.match(r'<img.*?>', line).group(0) 

Edit:

You also might be better off doing something like

imgtag  = re.match(r'<img.*?>',line) if imtag:     print("yo it's a {}".format(imgtag.group(0))) 

to eliminate all the Nones.