29 replies to this topic

[postSingularityHumanoid]

Square brackets seems like an "or" and not an "and". Like if I put in [ab] I would get stings that contain a, b or a ava b.

[Stains_not_here_man]

Ok so you want to match any word with an "a" and a "b" in any order?

Match:
banana
absinthe
cabana
baccarat

No match:
ankle
browser
elbow
shanty

?
Also match:

Brand
Drawback

[postSingularityHumanoid]

I think you get what I'm going for, yes.

 

I have the words in a list object like this:

 

word_list = ['apple', 'guy', 'stuck', 'blah']

 

eta:  I picked those words at random, only blah meets the criteria

Edited by postSingularityHumanoid, 25 January 2023 - 08:47 AM.

[Stains_not_here_man]

So for that particular example, again this isn't python specific but the regex itself would be

/.*a.*b.*|.*b.*a.*/

.* matches 0 or more of any character (basically a wildcard)

So this translates as

Anything followed by an a, followed by anything, followed by a b, followed by anything. OR anything followed by b, followed by anything, followed by a, followed by anything.

And note that in this context "anything" really means "anything or nothing".

Regexpal.com is your friend btw

Edited by Stains_not_here_man, 25 January 2023 - 08:48 AM.

[postSingularityHumanoid]

So for that particular example, again this isn't python specific but the regex itself would be

/.*a.*b.*|.*b.*a.*/

.* matches 0 or more of any character (basically a wildcard)

So this translates as

Anything followed by an a, followed by anything, followed by a b, followed by anything. OR anything followed by b, followed by anything, followed by a, followed by anything.

And note that in this context "anything" really means "anything or nothing".

Regexpal.com is your friend btw

 

oh, I didn't know these were sort of universal.  so the * always modifies the thing that precedes it, right?  and it basically means, "any number of that thing" and since period is "anything" that's how you arrived there?

[Stains_not_here_man]

Yep!

[postSingularityHumanoid]

Yep!

 

okay, cool.  thanks!

[postSingularityHumanoid]

damn, so something that complicates this a little is the number of letters is variable.  could be 1, 2, 3, etc.

 

you kind of hard coded it for 2 letters but I guess for 3 I'd need 6 small REs divided up with "or"s?  I haven't thought about it too long yet though so I may not have right....

[Stains_not_here_man]

Keep in mind that regex itself is mostly useful for things that are "patterns". In some cases a for loop or a series of them may be more appropriate depending on the variability of the thing you're looking at.

[postSingularityHumanoid]

Keep in mind that regex itself is mostly useful for things that are "patterns". In some cases a for loop or a series of them may be more appropriate depending on the variability of the thing you're looking at.

 

yeah, I was just trying to exercise my RE skills.