re.search()
Published Jul 30, 2021Updated Jun 10, 2022
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The .search()
method returns the first match of a character pattern anywhere in a given string.
Syntax
re.search(<pattern>, string, <optional args>)
A <pattern>
is a regular expression that can include any of the following:
- A string:
Jane
- A character class code:
/w
,/s
,/d
- A regex symbol:
$
,|
,^
There are optional arguments that include the following:
- A starting index value (pos):
3
- An index value to end the search (endpos):
40
- Flags:
IGNORECASE
,VERBOSE
,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).
Example
All content that appears within parentheses are matched with the .search()
method in the example below:
import reresult = re.search(r"\(.*\)", "the coordinates (lat:48,lon:-120)")# Backslashes designate a symbol as part of the patternprint(result)
The output will look like this:
<re.Match object; span=(16, 33), match="(lat:48,lon:-120)">
Codebyte Example
The following example features a regex that uses the .search()
method to match a web address:
import reresult = re.search(r"www\S+", "the tutorials at www.codeacademy.com")# \S matches any character except a space, tab or newlineprint(result)
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