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I have a python template engine that heavily uses regexp. It uses concatenation like:
re.compile( regexp1 + "|" + regexp2 + "*|" + regexp3 + "+" ) I can modify the individual substrings (regexp1, regexp2 etc).
Is there any small and light expression that matches nothing, which I can use inside a template where I don't want any matches? Unfortunately, sometimes '+' or '*' is appended to the regexp atom so I can't use an empty string - that will raise a "nothing to repeat" error.
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The most portable regex would be ^[ \t\n]*$ to match an empty string (note that you would need to replace \t and \n with tab and newline accordingly) and [^ \n\t] to match a non-whitespace string. Save this answer.
To match a character having special meaning in regex, you need to use a escape sequence prefix with a backslash ( \ ). E.g., \. matches "." ; regex \+ matches "+" ; and regex \( matches "(" . You also need to use regex \\ to match "\" (back-slash).
$ means "Match the end of the string" (the position after the last character in the string). Both are called anchors and ensure that the entire string is matched instead of just a substring.
Basically (0+1)* mathes any sequence of ones and zeroes. So, in your example (0+1)*1(0+1)* should match any sequence that has 1. It would not match 000 , but it would match 010 , 1 , 111 etc. (0+1) means 0 OR 1.
This shouldn't match anything:
re.compile('$^') So if you replace regexp1, regexp2 and regexp3 with '$^' it will be impossible to find a match. Unless you are using the multi line mode.
After some tests I found a better solution
re.compile('a^') It is impossible to match and will fail earlier than the previous solution. You can replace a with any other character and it will always be impossible to match
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(?!) should always fail to match. It is the zero-width negative look-ahead. If what is in the parentheses matches then the whole match fails. Given that it has nothing in it, it will fail the match for anything (including nothing).
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