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Python Regular Expressions in Python Introduction to Regular Expressions Email Groups

Jacqueline Bolt
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Jacqueline Bolt
Python Development Techdegree Graduate 45,360 Points

Always returning an empty object when more than one group

Every which way I try this regex, I can't get it to work. When I test out these groups individually, they return what seems to be correct data. When I include both groups, it stops working and always returns an empty object. Obviously, there's something I'm misunderstanding, but I can't figure out what. Help!

emails.py
import re

string = '''Love, Kenneth, kenneth+challenge@teamtreehouse.com, 555-555-5555, @kennethlove
Chalkley, Andrew, andrew@teamtreehouse.co.uk, 555-555-5556, @chalkers
McFarland, Dave, dave.mcfarland@teamtreehouse.com, 555-555-5557, @davemcfarland
Kesten, Joy, joy@teamtreehouse.com, 555-555-5558, @joykesten'''

contacts = (re.search(r'''
    ^(?P<email>[-\w\d.+]+@[-\w\d.]+)  #email
    (?P<phone>\d{3}-\d{3}-\d{4})$ #phone
''', string, re.X|re.M))

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,268 Points

You're close, but I see two issues:

  • the ^ and $ anchors require a pattern to be at the beginning and end of the string; and since the target is not at either of these, there won’t be a match
  • the pattern needs ,\s between the fields to consume the comma and space