re.match()

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Published Jun 10, 2022Updated Sep 5, 2023
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The .match() method returns a matching character pattern at the beginning of a given string.

Syntax

re.match(<pattern>, string, <flags>)

A <pattern> can include any of the following:

  • A string: Jane
  • A character class code: /w, /s , /d
  • A regex symbol: $, |, ^

The <flags> are optional and can be set to IGNORECASE, VERBOSE, or DOTALL.

Note: .search() will only return the first match (as a match object) within the string; alternatively, the .findall() method matches every occurrence (and returns a list of matches).

Example

In the example below, the .match() method is used to find a pattern at the beginning of the string:

import re


result = re.match(r"www", "www.codeacademy.com")


print(result)

The output will look like this:

<_sre.SRE_Match object; span=(0, 3), match="www">

Codebyte Example

The following example returns a match object (<re.Match object; span=(0, 12), match='123-456-7890'>) and not None since the phone number (123-456-7890) matches the test pattern:

Code
Output
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