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authorEzio Melotti <ezio.melotti@gmail.com>2012-02-29 11:40:11 (GMT)
committerEzio Melotti <ezio.melotti@gmail.com>2012-02-29 11:40:11 (GMT)
commit6ea00ef25a01f1b61327ed2c7c5045c3a6002146 (patch)
tree8b9defcf175e3c2e12b0e08ebdf8670e2559db4d /Doc/library/re.rst
parent0b8123d8ae14520aa5c8623e1c829e9e44bfe04b (diff)
parent443f000bdd4c578d1cee1b815c07a2c32c149109 (diff)
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#14155: merge with 3.2.
Diffstat (limited to 'Doc/library/re.rst')
-rw-r--r--Doc/library/re.rst80
1 files changed, 28 insertions, 52 deletions
diff --git a/Doc/library/re.rst b/Doc/library/re.rst
index 8df8aaa..60c2f86 100644
--- a/Doc/library/re.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/re.rst
@@ -423,31 +423,6 @@ a group reference. As for string literals, octal escapes are always at most
three digits in length.
-.. _matching-searching:
-
-Matching vs. Searching
-----------------------
-
-.. sectionauthor:: Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake@acm.org>
-
-
-Python offers two different primitive operations based on regular expressions:
-**match** checks for a match only at the beginning of the string, while
-**search** checks for a match anywhere in the string (this is what Perl does
-by default).
-
-Note that match may differ from search even when using a regular expression
-beginning with ``'^'``: ``'^'`` matches only at the start of the string, or in
-:const:`MULTILINE` mode also immediately following a newline. The "match"
-operation succeeds only if the pattern matches at the start of the string
-regardless of mode, or at the starting position given by the optional *pos*
-argument regardless of whether a newline precedes it.
-
- >>> re.match("c", "abcdef") # No match
- >>> re.search("c", "abcdef") # Match
- <_sre.SRE_Match object at ...>
-
-
.. _contents-of-module-re:
Module Contents
@@ -581,10 +556,11 @@ form.
<match-objects>`. Return ``None`` if the string does not match the pattern;
note that this is different from a zero-length match.
- .. note::
+ Note that even in :const:`MULTILINE` mode, :func:`re.match` will only match
+ at the beginning of the string and not at the beginning of each line.
- If you want to locate a match anywhere in *string*, use :func:`search`
- instead.
+ If you want to locate a match anywhere in *string*, use :func:`search`
+ instead (see also :ref:`search-vs-match`).
.. function:: split(pattern, string, maxsplit=0, flags=0)
@@ -771,16 +747,14 @@ attributes:
The optional *pos* and *endpos* parameters have the same meaning as for the
:meth:`~regex.search` method.
- .. note::
-
- If you want to locate a match anywhere in *string*, use
- :meth:`~regex.search` instead.
-
>>> pattern = re.compile("o")
>>> pattern.match("dog") # No match as "o" is not at the start of "dog".
>>> pattern.match("dog", 1) # Match as "o" is the 2nd character of "dog".
<_sre.SRE_Match object at ...>
+ If you want to locate a match anywhere in *string*, use
+ :meth:`~regex.search` instead (see also :ref:`search-vs-match`).
+
.. method:: regex.split(string, maxsplit=0)
@@ -1142,37 +1116,39 @@ the above regular expression can avoid recursion by being recast as ``Begin
[a-zA-Z0-9_ ]*?end``. As a further benefit, such regular expressions will run
faster than their recursive equivalents.
+.. _search-vs-match:
search() vs. match()
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
-In a nutshell, :func:`match` only attempts to match a pattern at the beginning
-of a string where :func:`search` will match a pattern anywhere in a string.
-For example:
+.. sectionauthor:: Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake@acm.org>
- >>> re.match("o", "dog") # No match as "o" is not the first letter of "dog".
- >>> re.search("o", "dog") # Match as search() looks everywhere in the string.
- <_sre.SRE_Match object at ...>
+Python offers two different primitive operations based on regular expressions:
+:func:`re.match` checks for a match only at the beginning of the string, while
+:func:`re.search` checks for a match anywhere in the string (this is what Perl
+does by default).
-.. note::
+For example::
- The following applies only to regular expression objects like those created
- with ``re.compile("pattern")``, not the primitives ``re.match(pattern,
- string)`` or ``re.search(pattern, string)``.
+ >>> re.match("c", "abcdef") # No match
+ >>> re.search("c", "abcdef") # Match
+ <_sre.SRE_Match object at ...>
-:func:`match` has an optional second parameter that gives an index in the string
-where the search is to start::
+Regular expressions beginning with ``'^'`` can be used with :func:`search` to
+restrict the match at the beginning of the string::
- >>> pattern = re.compile("o")
- >>> pattern.match("dog") # No match as "o" is not at the start of "dog."
+ >>> re.match("c", "abcdef") # No match
+ >>> re.search("^c", "abcdef") # No match
+ >>> re.search("^a", "abcdef") # Match
+ <_sre.SRE_Match object at ...>
- # Equivalent to the above expression as 0 is the default starting index:
- >>> pattern.match("dog", 0)
+Note however that in :const:`MULTILINE` mode :func:`match` only matches at the
+beginning of the string, whereas using :func:`search` with a regular expression
+beginning with ``'^'`` will match at the beginning of each line.
- # Match as "o" is the 2nd character of "dog" (index 0 is the first):
- >>> pattern.match("dog", 1)
+ >>> re.match('X', 'A\nB\nX', re.MULTILINE) # No match
+ >>> re.search('^X', 'A\nB\nX', re.MULTILINE) # Match
<_sre.SRE_Match object at ...>
- >>> pattern.match("dog", 2) # No match as "o" is not the 3rd character of "dog."
Making a Phonebook