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Complex regex in Python

I am trying to write a generic pattern using regex so that it fetches only particular things from the string. Let's say we have strings like GigabitEthernet0/0/0/0 or FastEthernet0/4 or Ethernet0/0.222. The regex should fetch the first 2 characters and all the numerals. Therefore, the fetched result should be something like Gi0000 or Fa04 or Et00222 depending on the above cases.
x = 'GigabitEthernet0/0/0/2
m = re.search('([\w+]{2}?)[\\\.(\d+)]{0,}',x)
I am not able to understand how shall I write the regular expression. The values can be fetched in the form of a list also. I write few more patterns but it isn't helping.

In regex, you may use re.findall function.
>>> import re
>>> s = 'GigabitEthernet0/0/0/0 '
>>> s[:2]+''.join(re.findall(r'\d', s))
'Gi0000'
OR
>>> ''.join(re.findall(r'^..|\d', s))
'Gi0000'
>>> ''.join(re.findall(r'^..|\d', 'Ethernet0/0.222'))
'Et00222'
OR
>>> s = 'GigabitEthernet0/0/0/0 '
>>> s[:2]+''.join([i for i in s if i.isdigit()])
'Gi0000'

z="Ethernet0/0.222."
print z[:2]+"".join(re.findall(r"(\d+)(?=[\d\W]*$)",z))
You can try this.This will make sure only digits from end come into play .

Here is another option:
s = 'Ethernet0/0.222'
"".join(re.findall('^\w{2}|[\d]+', s))

Using regular expression to extract string

I need to extract the IP address from the following string.
>>> mydns='ec2-54-196-170-182.compute-1.amazonaws.com'
The text to the left of the dot needs to be returned. The following works as expected.
>>> mydns[:18]
'ec2-54-196-170-182'
But it does not work in all cases. For e.g.
mydns='ec2-666-777-888-999.compute-1.amazonaws.com'
>>> mydns[:18]
'ec2-666-777-888-99'
How to I use regular expressions in python?

No need for regex... Just use str.split
mydns.split('.', 1)[0]
Demo:
>>> mydns='ec2-666-777-888-999.compute-1.amazonaws.com'
>>> mydns.split('.', 1)[0]
'ec2-666-777-888-999'

If you wanted to use regex for this:
Regex String
ec2-([0-9]{1,3})-([0-9]{1,3})-([0-9]{1,3})-([0-9]{1,3}).*
Alternative (EC2 Agnostic):
.*\b([0-9]{1,3})-([0-9]{1,3})-([0-9]{1,3})-([0-9]{1,3}).*
Replacement String
Regular: \1.\2.\3.\4
Reverse: \4.\3.\2.\1
Python code
import re
subject = 'ec2-54-196-170-182.compute-1.amazonaws.com'
result = re.sub("ec2-([0-9]{1,3})-([0-9]{1,3})-([0-9]{1,3})-([0-9]{1,3}).*", r"\1.\2.\3.\4", subject)
print result

This regex will match (^[^.]+:
So Try this:
import re
string = "ec2-54-196-170-182.compute-1.amazonaws.com"
ip = re.findall('^[^.]+',string)[0]
print ip
Output:
ec2-54-196-170-182
Best thing is this will match even if the instance was ec2,ec3 so this regex is actually very much similar to the code of #mgilson

search patterns with variable gaps in python

I am looking for patterns in a list containing different strings as:
names = ['TAATGH', 'GHHKLL', 'TGTHA', 'ATGTTKKKK', 'KLPPNF']
I would like to select the string that has the pattern 'T--T' (no matter how the string starts), so those elements would be selected and appended to a new list as:
namesSelected = ['TAATGH', 'ATGTTKKKK']
Using grep I could:
grep "T[[:alpha:]]\{2\}T"
Is there a similar mode in re python?
Thanks for any help!

I think this is most likely what you want:
re.search(r'T[A-Z]{2}T', inputString)
The equivalent in Python for [[:alpha:]] would be [a-zA-Z]. You may replace [A-Z] with [a-zA-Z] in the code snippet above if you wish to allow lowercase alphabet.
Documentation for re.search.

Yep, you can use re.search:
>>> names = ['TAATGH', 'GHHKLL', 'TGTHA', 'ATGTTKKKK', 'KLPPNF']
>>> reslist = []
>>> for i in names:
... res = re.search(r'T[A-Z]{2}T', i)
... if res:
... reslist.append(i)
...
>>>
>>> print(reslist)
['TAATGH', 'ATGTTKKKK']

import re
def grep(l, pattern):
r = re.compile(pattern)
return [_ for _ in l if r.search(pattern)]
nameSelected = grep(names, "T\w{2}T")
Note the use of \w instead of [[:alpha:]]

regex and replace on string using python

I am rather new to Python Regex (regex in general) and I have been encountering a problem. So, I have a few strings like so:
str1 = r'''hfo/gfbi/mytag=a_17014b_82c'''
str2 = r'''/bkyhi/oiukj/game/?mytag=a_17014b_82c&'''
str3 = r'''lkjsd/image/game/mytag=a_17014b_82c$'''
the & and the $ could be any symbol.
I would like to have a single regex (and replace) which replaces:
mytag=a_17014b_82c
to:
mytag=myvalue
from any of the above 3 strings. Would appreciate any guidance on how I can achieve this.
UPDATE: the string to be replaced is always not the same. So, a_17014b_82c could be anything in reality.

If the string to be replaced is constant you don't need a regex. Simply use replace:
>>> str1 = r'''hfo/gfbi/mytag=a_17014b_82c'''
>>> str1.replace('a_17014b_82c','myvalue')
'hfo/gfbi/mytag=myvalue'

Use re.sub:
>>> import re
>>> r = re.compile(r'(mytag=)(\w+)')
>>> r.sub(r'\1myvalue', str1)
'hfo/gfbi/mytag=myvalue'
>>> r.sub(r'\1myvalue', str2)
'/bkyhi/oiukj/game/?mytag=myvalue&'
>>> r.sub(r'\1myvalue', str3)
'lkjsd/image/game/mytag=myvalue$'

import re
r = re.compile(r'(mytag=)\w+$')
r.sub(r'\1myvalue', str1)
This is based on #Ashwini's answer, two small changes are we are saying the mytag=a_17014b part should be at the end of input, so that even inputs such as
str1 = r'''/bkyhi/mytag=blah/game/?mytag=a_17014b_82c&'''
will work fine, substituting the last mytag instead of the the first.
Another small change is we are not unnecessarily capturing the \w+, since we aren't using it anyway. This is just for a bit of code clarity.

python: how to remove '$'?

All I want to do is remove the dollar sign '$'. This seems simple, but I really don't know why my code isn't working.
import re
input = '$5'
if '$' in input:
input = re.sub(re.compile('$'), '', input)
print input
Input still is '$5' instead of just '5'! Can anyone help?

Try using replace instead:
input = input.replace('$', '')
As Madbreaks has stated, $ means match the end of the line in a regular expression.
Here is a handy link to regular expressions: http://docs.python.org/2/library/re.html

In this case, I'd use str.translate
>>> '$$foo$$'.translate(None,'$')
'foo'
And for benchmarking purposes:
>>> def repl(s):
... return s.replace('$','')
...
>>> def trans(s):
... return s.translate(None,'$')
...
>>> import timeit
>>> s = '$$foo bar baz $ qux'
>>> print timeit.timeit('repl(s)','from __main__ import repl,s')
0.969965934753
>>> print timeit.timeit('trans(s)','from __main__ import trans,s')
0.796354055405
There are a number of differences between str.replace and str.translate. The most notable is that str.translate is useful for switching 1 character with another whereas str.replace replaces 1 substring with another. So, for problems like, I want to delete all characters a,b,c, or I want to change a to d, I suggest str.translate. Conversely, problems like "I want to replace the substring abc with def" are well suited for str.replace.
Note that your example doesn't work because $ has special meaning in regex (it matches at the end of a string). To get it to work with regex you need to escape the $:
>>> re.sub('\$','',s)
'foo bar baz qux'
works OK.

$ is a special character in regular expressions that translates to 'end of the string'
you need to escape it if you want to use it literally
try this:
import re
input = "$5"
if "$" in input:
input = re.sub(re.compile('\$'), '', input)
print input

You need to escape the dollar sign - otherwise python thinks it is an anchor http://docs.python.org/2/library/re.html
import re
fred = "$hdkhsd%$"
print re.sub ("\$","!", fred)
>> !hdkhsd%!

Aside from the other answers, you can also use strip():
input = input.strip('$')