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Python Regular Expressions in Python Introduction to Regular Expressions Players Dictionary and Class

More regex woes!

So the tricky one of the double names has caught me,

I have the optional [\s\w] in, which seems to do the trick on just a string name- so not sure why it isn't working here!

... any help much appreciated

players.py
import re

string = '''Love, Kenneth: 20
Chalkley, Andrew: 25
McFarland, Dave: 10
Kesten, Joy: 22
Stewart Pinchback, Pinckney Benton: 18'''

players = re.search(r'''
  ^(?P<last_name>\w+[\s\w+]),\s
  (?P<first_name>\w+[\s\w+]):\s
  (?P<score>\d+)?$
''', string, re.X|re.M)

1 Answer

Dan Johnson
Dan Johnson
40,533 Points

An optional match (that is one or zero occurrences) is denoted with the ?. The expression, [\s\w] is a character class that will match exactly one of either a space or letter. So if you wanted it to be an optional space or letter you'd want [\s\w]?

However for this challenge you just need to look for the optional space between two words. One solution would be \w+\s?\w*

Note that using + in a character class will attempt to match the literal + rather than a one or more of the preceding character.

Thanks, great answer Dan... I took and re-look over the regex symbology and have it a lot more right in my head now - cheers :)