How to parse paths in text without trailing slash using regex?

Question

I have a log that includes a lot of paths along with other text. I want to get specific paths from the log without a trailing slash.
How to do it using regex?

For example, the text is:

some text /dir1/dir2/ some text
some text /dir1/dir3 some text

I'd like to get these matches:

/dir1/dir2
/dir1/dir3

I've tried different methods using positive lookahead, like:

\/dir1[^\s]*(?=\/)

But they didn't work. I would appreciate any support.

@jhnc Please, could you put your answer in the "answer section", so I would point it as the one which solved my problem? — tkmamedov, Aug 27 '21 at 18:46

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 27 '21 at 20:06

Use

\/dir1(?:\/[^\/\s]+)*

See regex proof.

EXPLANATION

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  \/                       '/'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  dir1                     'dir1'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  (?:                      group, but do not capture (0 or more times
                           (matching the most amount possible)):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \/                       '/'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    [^\/\s]+                 any character except: '\/', whitespace
                             (\n, \r, \t, \f, and " ") (1 or more
                             times (matching the most amount
                             possible))
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  )*                       end of grouping

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 27 '21 at 18:23

Well based on your definition you're looking for anything with a leading slash in a space separated ensemble. So:

s = 'some text /dir1/dir2/ some text'

print([x for x in s.split() if x[0] == '/'])

Output:

/dir1/dir2/

This will work whichever string you feed in.

score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 27 '21 at 18:25

\/.*\/\S*

\/ - match forward slash

.* - match any character for infinite amount of times

\/ - match forward slash

/\S* - match any non-whitespace character for infinite amount of times

This should work assuming you always have a whitespace after /dir1/dir2/ or /dir1/dir2

How to parse paths in text without trailing slash using regex?

3 Answers3