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Regular Expressions: Search in list

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python

regex

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Is search a regex function?

Summary. Use the regex search() function to return the first match of a pattern in a string or None if the search was unsuccessful.

What is regex search in Python?

A RegEx, or Regular Expression, is a sequence of characters that forms a search pattern. RegEx can be used to check if a string contains the specified search pattern.


Full Example (Python 3):
For Python 2.x look into Note below

import re

mylist = ["dog", "cat", "wildcat", "thundercat", "cow", "hooo"]
r = re.compile(".*cat")
newlist = list(filter(r.match, mylist)) # Read Note below
print(newlist)

Prints:

['cat', 'wildcat', 'thundercat']

Note:

For Python 2.x developers, filter returns a list already. In Python 3.x filter was changed to return an iterator so it has to be converted to list (in order to see it printed out nicely).

Python 3 code example
Python 2.x code example


You can create an iterator in Python 3.x or a list in Python 2.x by using:

filter(r.match, list)

To convert the Python 3.x iterator to a list, simply cast it; list(filter(..)).


To do so without compiling the Regex first, use a lambda function - for example:

from re import match

values = ['123', '234', 'foobar']
filtered_values = list(filter(lambda v: match('^\d+$', v), values))

print(filtered_values)

Returns:

['123', '234']

filter() just takes a callable as it's first argument, and returns a list where that callable returned a 'truthy' value.