python re.search not working on multiline string

Question

I have this file loaded in string:

// some preceding stuff
static char header_data[] = {
    1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,
    1,1,1,0,1,1,0,1,1,0,1,1,0,1,1,1,
    1,1,0,1,0,1,0,1,1,0,1,0,1,0,1,1,
    1,0,1,1,1,0,0,1,1,0,0,1,1,1,0,1,
    0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,1,1,
    1,0,0,0,1,1,0,1,1,1,1,1,0,1,1,1,
    0,1,0,0,0,1,0,0,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,
    0,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,
    0,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,0,1,1,0,
    0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,1,0,0,1,0,1,0,0,
    1,1,1,0,1,1,0,0,1,1,0,0,0,1,1,1,
    1,1,0,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,1,1,
    1,0,1,1,1,0,0,1,1,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,
    1,1,0,1,0,1,0,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,1,
    1,1,1,0,1,1,0,1,1,0,1,1,1,1,0,1,
    1,1,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1
    };

I want to get only the block with ones and zeros, and then somehow process it.

I imported re, and tried:

In [11]: re.search('static char header_data(.*);', src, flags=re.M)

In [12]: re.findall('static char header_data(.*);', src, flags=re.M)
Out[12]: []

Why doesn't it match anything? How to fix this? (It's python3)

Answer 1

You need to use the re.S flag, not re.M.

• re.M (re.MULTILINE) controls the behavior of ^ and $ (whether they match at the start/end of the entire string or of each line).
• re.S (re.DOTALL) controls the behavior of the . and is the option you need when you want to allow the dot to match newlines.

See also the documentation.