How to use python regex to match words beginning with hash and question mark?

Question

This should be easy and this regex works fine to search for words beginning with specific characters, but I can't get it to match hashes and question marks.

This works and matches words beginning a:

r = re.compile(r"\b([a])(\w+)\b")

But these don't match: Tried:

r = re.compile(r"\b([#?])(\w+)\b")
r = re.compile(r"\b([\#\?])(\w+)\b")
r = re.compile( r"([#\?][\w]+)?")

even tried just matching hashes

r = re.compile( r"([#][\w]+)?"
r = re.compile( r"([/#][\w]+)?"

text = "this is one #tag and this is ?another tag"
items = r.findall(text)

expecting to get:

[('#', 'tag'), ('?', 'another')]

Answer 1

\b matches the empty space between a \w and \W (or between a \W and \w) but there is no \b before a # or ?.

In other words: remove the first word boundary.

Not:

r = re.compile(r"\b([#?])(\w+)\b")

but

r = re.compile(r"([#?])(\w+)\b")

Answer 2

you are using Python, regex is the last thing to come to mind

>>> text = "this is one #tag and this is ?another tag"
>>> for word in text.split():
...   if word.startswith("#") or word.startswith("?"):
...     print word
...
#tag
?another