Develop Reference

Replace a substring between two substrings

How can I replace a substring between page1/ and _type-A with 222.6 in the below-provided l string?
l = 'https://homepage.com/home/page1/222.6 a_type-A/go'
replace_with = '222.6'
Expected result:
https://homepage.com/home/page1/222.6_type-A/go
I tried:
import re
re.sub('page1/.*?_type-A','',l, flags=re.DOTALL)
But it also removes page1/ and _type-A.

You may use re.sub like this:
import re
l = 'https://homepage.com/home/page1/222.6 a_type-A/go'
replace_with = '222.6'
print (re.sub(r'(?<=page1/).*?(?=_type-A)', replace_with, l))
Output:
https://homepage.com/home/page1/222.6_type-A/go
RegEx Demo
RegEx Breakup:
(?<=page1/): Lookbehind to assert that we have page1/ at previous position
.*?: Match 0 or more of any string (lazy)
(?=_type-A): Lookahead to assert that we have _type-A at next position

You can use
import re
l = 'https://'+'homepage.com/home/page1/222.6 a_type-A/go'
replace_with = '222.6'
print (re.sub('(page1/).*?(_type-A)',fr'\g<1>{replace_with}\2',l, flags=re.DOTALL))
Output: https://homepage.com/home/page1/222.6_type-A/go
See the Python demo online
Note you used an empty string as the replacement argument. In the above snippet, the parts before and after .*? are captured and \g<1> refers to the first group value, and \2 refers to the second group value from the replacement pattern. The unambiguous backreference form (\g<X>) is used to avoid backreference issues since there is a digit right after the backreference.
Since the replacement pattern contains no backslashes, there is no need preprocessing (escaping) anything in it.

This works:
import re
l = 'https://homepage.com/home/page1/222.6 a_type-A/go'
pattern = r"(?<=page1/).*?(?=_type)"
replace_with = '222.6'
s = re.sub(pattern, replace_with, l)
print(s)
The pattern uses the positive lookahead and lookback assertions, ?<= and ?=. A match only occurs if a string is preceded and followed by the assertions in the pattern, but does not consume them. Meaning that re.sub looks for a string with page1/ in front and _type behind it, but only replaces the part in between.

Regex string between square brackets only if '.' is within string

I'm trying to detect the text between two square brackets in Python however I only want the result where there is a "." within it.
I currently have [(.*?] as my regex, using the following example:
String To Search:
CASE[Data Source].[Week] = 'THIS WEEK'
Result:
Data Source, Week
However I need the whole string as [Data Source].[Week], (square brackets included, only if there is a '.' in the middle of the string). There could also be multiple instances where it matches.

You might write a pattern matching [...] and then repeat 1 or more times a . and again [...]
\[[^][]*](?:\.\[[^][]*])+
Explanation
\[[^][]*] Match from [...] using a negated character class
(?: Non capture group to repeat as a whole part
\.\[[^][]*] Match a dot and again [...]
)+ Close the non capture group and repeat 1+ times
See a regex demo.
To get multiple matches, you can use re.findall
import re
pattern = r"\[[^][]*](?:\.\[[^][]*])+"
s = ("CASE[Data Source].[Week] = 'THIS WEEK'\n"
"CASE[Data Source].[Week] = 'THIS WEEK'")
print(re.findall(pattern, s))
Output
['[Data Source].[Week]', '[Data Source].[Week]']
If you also want the values of between square brackets when there is not dot, you can use an alternation with lookaround assertions:
\[[^][]*](?:\.\[[^][]*])+|(?<=\[)[^][]*(?=])
Explanation
\[[^][]*](?:\.\[[^][]*])+ The same as the previous pattern
| Or
(?<=\[)[^][]*(?=]) Match [...] asserting [ to the left and ] to the right
See another regex demo

I think an alternative approach could be:
import re
pattern = re.compile("(\[[^\]]*\]\.\[[^\]]*\])")
print(pattern.findall(sss))
OUTPUT
['[Data Source].[Week]']

non greedy Python regex from end of string

I need to search a string in Python 3 and I'm having troubles implementing a non greedy logic starting from the end.
I try to explain with an example:
Input can be one of the following
test1 = 'AB_x-y-z_XX1234567890_84481.xml'
test2 = 'x-y-z_XX1234567890_84481.xml'
test3 = 'XX1234567890_84481.xml'
I need to find the last part of the string ending with
somestring_otherstring.xml
In all the above cases the regex should return XX1234567890_84481.xml
My best try is:
result = re.search('(_.+)?\.xml$', test1, re.I).group()
print(result)
Here I used:
(_.+)? to match "_anystring" in a non greedy mode
\.xml$ to match ".xml" in the final part of the string
The output I get is not correct:
_x-y-z_XX1234567890_84481.xml
I found some SO questions (link) explaining the regex starts from the left even with non greedy qualifier.
Could anyone explain me how to implement a non greedy regex from the right?

Your pattern (_.+)?\.xml$ captures in an optional group from the first underscore until it can match .xml at the end of the string and it does not take the number of underscores that should be between into account.
To only match the last part you can omit the capturing group. You could use a negated character class and use the anchor $ to assert the end of the line as it is the last part:
[^_]+_[^_]+\.xml$
Regex demo | Python demo
That will match
[^_]+ Match 1+ times not _
_ Match literally
[^_]+ Match 1+ times not _
\.xml$ Match .xml at the end of the string
For example:
import re
test1 = 'AB_x-y-z_XX1234567890_84481.xml'
result = re.search('[^_]+_[^_]+\.xml$', test1, re.I)
if result:
print(result.group())

Not sure if this matches what you're looking for conceptually as "non greedy from the right" - but this pattern yields the correct answer:
'[^_]+_[^_]+\.xml$'
The [^_] is a character class matching any character which is not an underscore.

You need to use this regex to capture what you want,
[^_]*_[^_]*\.xml
Demo
Check out this Python code,
import re
arr = ['AB_x-y-z_XX1234567890_84481.xml','x-y-z_XX1234567890_84481.xml','XX1234567890_84481.xml']
for s in arr:
m = re.search(r'[^_]*_[^_]*\.xml', s)
if (m):
print(m.group(0))
Prints,
XX1234567890_84481.xml
XX1234567890_84481.xml
XX1234567890_84481.xml
The problem in your regex (_.+)?\.xml$ is, (_.+)? part will start matching from the first _ and will match anything until it sees a literal .xml and whole of it is optional too as it is followed by ?. Due to which in string _x-y-z_XX1234567890_84481.xml, it will also match _x-y-z_XX1234567890_84481 which isn't the correct behavior you desired.

python RE white space in the pattern

I am writing a Python script to find a tag name in a string like this:
string='Tag Name =LIC100 State =TRUE'
If a use a expression like this
re.search('Name(.*)State',string)
I get " =LIC100". I would like to get just LIC100.
Any suggestions on how to set up the pattern to eliminate the whitespace and the equal signal?

That is because you get 0+ chars other than line break chars from Name up to the last State. You may restrict the pattern in Group 1 to just non-whitespaces:
import re
string='Tag Name =LIC100 State =TRUE'
m = re.search(r'Name\s*=(\S*)',string)
if m:
print(m.group(1))
See the Python demo
Pattern details:
Name - a literal char sequence
\s* - 0+ whitespaces
= - a literal =
(\S*) - Group 1 capturing 0+ chars other than whitespace (or \S+ can be used to match 1 or more chars other than whitespace).

The easiest solution would probably just be to strip it out after the fact, like so:
s = " =LIC100 "
s = s.strip('= ')
print(s)
#LIC100
If you insist on doing it within the regex, you can try something like:
reg = r'Name[ =]+([A-Za-z0-9]+)\s+State'

Your current regex is failing because (.*) captures all characters until the occurance of State. Instead of capturing everything, you can use a positive lookbehind to describe what preceeds, but is not included in, the content you actually want to capture. In this case, "Name =" preceeds the match, so we can stick it in the lookbehind assertion as (?<=Name =), then proceed to capture everything until the next whitespace:
>>> import re
>>> s = 'Tag Name =LIC100 State =TRUE'
>>> r = re.compile("(?<=Name =)\w*")
>>> print(r.search(s))
<_sre.SRE_Match object; span=(10, 16), match='LIC100'>
>>> print(r.search(s).group(0))
LIC100

Following the tips above, I manage to find a nice solution.
Actually, the string I am trying to process has some non-printable characters. It is like this
"Tag Name\x00=LIC100\x00\tState=TRUE"
Using the concept of lookahead and lookbehind I found the following solution:
import re
s = 'Tag Name\x00=LIC100\x00\tState=TRUE'
T=re.search(r'(?<=Name\x00=)(.*)(?=\x00\tState)',s)
print(T.group(0))
The nice thing about this is that the outcome does not have any non-printable character on it.
<_sre.SRE_Match object; span=(10, 16), match='LIC100'>

Regular Expressions using Substitution to convert numbers

I'm a Python beginner, so keep in mind my regex skills are level -122.
I need to convert a string with text containing file1 to file01, but not convert file10 to file010.
My program is wrong, but this is the closest I can get, I've tried dozens of combinations but I can't get close:
import re
txt = 'file8, file9, file10'
pat = r"[0-9]"
regexp = re.compile(pat)
print(regexp.sub(r"0\d", txt))
Can someone tell me what's wrong with my pattern and substitution and give me some suggestions?

You could capture the number and check the length before adding 0, but you might be able to use this instead:
import re
txt = 'file8, file9, file10'
pat = r"(?<!\d)(\d)(?=,|$)"
regexp = re.compile(pat)
print(regexp.sub(r"0\1", txt))
regex101 demo
(?<! ... ) is called a negative lookbehind. This prevents (negative) a match if the pattern after it has the pattern in the negative lookbehind matches. For example, (?<!a)b will match all b in a string, except if it has an a before it, meaning bb, cb matches, but ab doesn't match. (?<!\d)(\d) thus matches a digit, unless it has another digit before it.
(\d) is a single digit, enclosed in a capture group, denoted by simple parentheses. The captured group gets stored in the first capture group.
(?= ... ) is a positive lookahead. This matches only if the pattern inside the positive lookahead matches after the pattern before this positive lookahead. In other words, a(?=b) will match all a in a string only if there's a b after it. ab matches, but ac or aa don't.
(?=,|$) is a positive lookahead containing ,|$ meaning either a comma, or the end of the string.
(?<!\d)(\d)(?=,|$) thus matches any digit, as long as there's no digit before it and there's a comma after it, or if that digit is at the end of the string.

how about?
a='file1'
a='file' + "%02d" % int(a.split('file')[1])

This approach uses a regex to find every sequence of digits and str.zfill to pad with zeros:
>>> txt = 'file8, file9, file10'
>>> re.sub(r'\d+', lambda m : m.group().zfill(2), txt)
'file08, file09, file10'