re.match()

The .match() method returns a matching character pattern at the beginning of a given string.

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 the first match (as a match object) within the string; alternatively, the .findall() method matches every occurrence (and returns a list of matches).

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">

The following example returns None because the test pattern is not at the beginning of the string:

import re

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

print(result)