Trouble with python regex matching

Asked Jun 04 '17 at 15:10

Active Jun 04 '17 at 15:10

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I am tying to write a regular expression to match the dates in a string.

timeStamps = '25-12-2017 25:12:2017 25.12.2017'

pattern = r'(\d{2}(?:-|:|.)){2}\d{4}'

[ re.search(pattern,ts) for ts in timeStamps.split()]

re.search is working without any problem and works exactly the way wanted.

[<_sre.SRE_Match object; span=(0, 10), match='25-12-2017'>,
 <_sre.SRE_Match object; span=(0, 10), match='25:12:2017'>,
 <_sre.SRE_Match object; span=(0, 10), match='25.12.2017'>]

When i change the re.search to re.findall, The result was different.

[ re.findall(pattern,ts) for ts in timeStamps.split()]
[['12-'], ['12:'], ['12.']]

Why the two functions are giving two different output?

asked Jun 04 '17 at 15:10

Fuji Komalan

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It's only capturing the first capture group, if that's not what you want, then don't use them – OneCricketeer Jun 04 '17 at 15:17
You have a capture group in the pattern. Make it non capture works `(?:\d{2}(?:-|:|.)){2}\d{4}` – Psidom Jun 04 '17 at 15:17
Thanks all, Problem solved when i change to non capturing group. – Fuji Komalan Jun 04 '17 at 15:21

Trouble with python regex matching

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