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python regex: match everything inside brackets including other brackets [duplicate]

In python, I can easily search for the first occurrence of a regex within a string like this:
import re
re.search("pattern", "target_text")
Now I need to find the last occurrence of the regex in a string, this doesn't seems to be supported by re module.
I can reverse the string to "search for the first occurrence", but I also need to reverse the regex, which is a much harder problem.
I can also iterate to find all occurrences from left to right, and just keep the last one, but that looks awkward.
Is there a smart way to find the rightmost occurrence?

One approach is to prefix the regex with (?s:.*) and force the engine to try matching at the furthest position and gradually backing off:
re.search("(?s:.*)pattern", "target_text")
Do note that the result of this method may differ from re.findall("pattern", "target_text")[-1], since the findall method searches for non-overlapping matches, and not all substrings which can be matched are included in the result.
For example, executing the regex a.a on abaca, findall would return aba as the only match and select it as the last match, while the code above will return aca as the match.
Yet another alternative is to use regex package, which supports REVERSE matching mode.
The result would be more or less the same as the method with (?s:.*) in re package as described above. However, since I haven't tried the package myself, it's not clear how backreference works in REVERSE mode - the pattern might require modification in such cases.

import re
re.search("pattern(?!.*pattern)", "target_text")
or
import re
re.findall("pattern", "target_text")[-1]
You can use these 2 approaches.
If you want positions use
x="abc abc abc"
print [(i.start(),i.end(),i.group()) for i in re.finditer(r"abc",x)][-1]

One approach is to use split. For example if you wanted to get the last group after ':' in this sample string:
mystr = 'dafdsaf:ewrewre:cvdsfad:ewrerae'
':'.join(mystr.split(':')[-1:])

Python regex to exclude several words

I try to search for URLS and want to exclude some. In the variable download_artist I stored the base URL and wanto to find additional links, but not upload, favorites, followers or listens.
So I tried different versions with the mentioned words and a |. Like:
urls = re.findall(rf'^{download_artist}uploads/|{download_artist}^favorites/|^{download_artist}followers/|^{download_artist}listens/|{download_artist}\S+"', response.text, re.IGNORECASE)
or:
urls = re.findall(rf'{download_artist}^uploads/|^favorites/|^followers/|^listens/|\S+"', response.text, re.IGNORECASE)
But it ignores my ^ for excluding the words. Where is my mistake?

You need use "lookaround" in this case, can see more details in https://www.regular-expressions.info/lookaround.html.
So, i think wich this regex solve your problem:
{download_artist}(?!uploads/|favorites/|followers/|listens/)\S+\"
You can test if regex working in https://regex101.com/. This site is very useful when you work with regex.

^ only works as a negation in character classes inside [], outside it represents the beginning of the input.
I suggest you do two matches: One to match all urls and another one to match the ones to exclude. Then remove the second set of urls from the first one.
That will keep the regexes simple and readable.
If you have to do it in one regex for whatever reason you can try to solve it with (negative) lookaround pattern (see https://www.rexegg.com/regex-lookarounds.html).

Python - Parsing JSON formatted text file with regex

I have a text file formatted like a JSON file however everything is on a single line (could be a MongoDB File). Could someone please point me in the direction of how I could extract values using a Python regex method please?
The text shows up like this:
{"d":{"__type":"WikiFileNodeContent:http:\/\/samplesite.com.‌​au\/ns\/business\/wi‌​ki","author":null,"d‌​escription":null,"fi‌​leAssetId":"034b9317‌​-60d9-45c2-b6d6-0f24‌​b59e1991","filename"‌​:"Reports.pdf"},"cre‌​atedBy":1531,"create‌​dByUsername":"John Cash","icon":"\/Assets10.37.5.0\/pix\/16x16\/page_white_acro‌​bat.png","id":3041,"‌​inheritedPermissions‌​":false,"name":"map"‌​,"permissions":[23,8‌​7,35,49,65],"type":3‌​,"viewLevel":2},{"__‌​type":"WikiNode:http‌​:\/\/samplesite.com.‌​au\/ns\/business\/wi‌​ki","children":[],"c‌​ontent":
I am wanting to get the "fileAssetId" and filename". Ive tried to load the like with Pythons JSON module but I get an error
For the FileAssetid I tried this regex:
regex = re.compile(r"([0-9a-f]{8})\S*-\S*([0-9a-f]{4})\S*-\S*([0-9a-f]{4})\S*-\S*([0-9a-f]{4})\S*-\S*([0-9a-f]{12})")
But i get the following 034b9317‌​, 60d9, 45c2, b6d6, 0f24‌​b59e1991
Im not to sure how to get the data as its displayed.

How about using positive lookahead and lookbehind:
(?<=\"fileAssetId\":\")[a-fA-F0-9-]+?(?=\")
captures the fileAssetId and
(?<=\"filename\":\").+?(?=\")
matches the filename.
For a detailed explanation of the regex have a look at the Regex101-Example. (Note: I combined both in the example with an OR-Operator | to show both matches at once)
To get a list of all matches use re.findall or re.finditer instead of re.match.
re.findall(pattern, string) returns a list of matching strings.
re.finditer(pattern, string) returns an iterator with the objects.

You can use python's walk method and check each entry with re.match.
In case that the string you got is not convertable to a python dict, you can use just regex:
print re.match(r'.*fileAssetId\":\"([^\"]+)\".*', your_pattern).group(1)
Solution for your example:
import re
example_string = '{"d":{"__type":"WikiFileNodeContent:http:\/\/samplesite.com.u\/ns\/business\/wiki","author":null,"description":null,"fileAssetId":"034b9317-60d9-45c2-b6d6-0f24b59e1991","filename":"Reports.pdf"},"createdBy":1531,"createdByUsername":"John Cash","icon":"\/Assets10.37.5.0\/pix\/16x16\/page_white_acrobat.png","id":3041,"inheritedPermissions":false,"name":"map","permissions":[23,87,35,49,65],"type":3,"viewLevel":2},{"__type":"WikiNode:http:\/\/samplesite.com.au\/ns\/business\/wiki","children":[],"content"'
regex_pattern = r'.*fileAssetId\":\"([^\"]+)\".*'
match = re.match(regex_pattern, example_string)
fileAssetId = match.group(1)
print('fileAssetId: {}'.format(fileAssetId))
executing this yields:
34b9317‌​-60d9-45c2-b6d6-0f24‌​b59e1991

Try adding \n to the string that you are entering in to the file (\n means new line)

Based on the idea given here https://stackoverflow.com/a/3845829 and by following the JSON standard https://www.json.org/json-en.html, we can use Python + regex https://pypi.org/project/regex/ and do the following:
json_pattern = (
r'(?(DEFINE)'
r'(?P<whitespace>( |\n|\r|\t)*)'
r'(?P<boolean>true|false)'
r'(?P<number>-?(0|([1-9]\d*))(\.\d*[1-9])?([eE][+-]?\d+)?)'
r'(?P<string>"([^"\\]|\\("|\\|/|b|f|n|r|t|u[0-9a-fA-F]{4}))*")'
r'(?P<array>\[((?&whitespace)|(?&value)(,(?&value))*)\])'
r'(?P<key>(?&whitespace)(?&string)(?&whitespace))'
r'(?P<value>(?&whitespace)((?&boolean)|(?&number)|(?&string)|(?&array)|(? &object)|null)(?&whitespace))'
r'(?P<object>\{((?&whitespace)|(?&key):(?&value)(,(?&key):(?&value))*)\})'
r'(?P<document>(?&object)|(?&array))'
r')'
r'(?&document)'
)
json_regex = regex.compile(json_pattern)
match = json_regex.match(json_document_text)
You can change last line in json_pattern to match not document but individual objects replacing (?&document) by (?&object). I think the regex is easier than I expected, but I did not run extensive tests on this. It works fine for me and I have tested hundreds of files. I wil try to improve my answer in case I find any issue when running it.

Improving accuracy/brevity of regex for inconsistent url filtering

So, for some lulz, a friend and I were playing with the idea of filtering a list (100k+) of urls to retrieve only the parent domain (ex. "domain.com|org|etc"). The only caveat is that they are not all nice and matching in format.
So, to explain, some may be "http://www.domain.com/urlstuff", some have country codes like "www.domain.co.uk/urlstuff", while others can be a bit more odd, more akin to "hello.in.con.sistent.urls.com/urlstuff".
So, story aside, I have a regex that works:
import re
firsturl = 'www.foobar.com/fizz/buzz'
m = re.search('\w+(?=(\..{3}/|\..{2}\..{2}/))\.(.{3}|.{2}\..{2})', firsturl)
m.group(0)
which returns:
foobar.com
It looks up the first "/" at the end of the url, then returns the two "." separated fields before it.
So, my query, would anyone in the stack hive mind have any wisdom to shed on how this could be done with better/shorter regex, or regex that doesn't rely on a forward lookup of the "/" within the string?
Appreciation for all of the help in this!

I do think that regex is just the right tool for this. Regex is pattern matching, which is put to best use when you have a known pattern that might have several variations, as in this case.
In your explanation of and attempted solution to the problem, I think you are greatly oversimplifying it, though. TLDs come in many more flavors than "2-digit country codes" and "3-digit" others. See ICANN's list of top-level domains for the hundreds currently available, with lengths from 2 digits and up. Also, you may have URLs without any slashes and some with multiple slashes and dots after the domain name.
So here's my solution (see on regex101):
^(?:https?://)?(?:[^/]+\.)*([^/]+\.[a-z]{2,})
What you want is captured in the first matching group.
Breakdown:
^(?:https?://)? matches a possible protocol at the beginning
(?:[^/]+\.)* matches possible multiple non-slash sequences, each followed by a dot
([^/]+\.[a-z]{2,}) matches (and captures) one final non-slash sequence followed by a dot and the TLD (2+ letters)

You can use this regex instead:
import re
firsturl = 'www.foobar.com/fizz/buzz'
domain = re.match("(.+?)\/", firsturl).group()
Notice, though, that this will only work without 'http://'.

How to combine multiple regular expressions into one line?

My script works fine doing this:
images = re.findall("src.\"(\S*?media.tumblr\S*?tumblr_\S*?jpg)", doc)
videos = re.findall("\S*?(http\S*?video_file\S*?tumblr_[a-zA-Z0-9]*)", doc)
However, I believe it is inefficient to search through the whole document twice.
Here's a sample document if it helps: http://pastebin.com/5kRZXjij
I would expect the following output from the above:
images = http://37.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnmh4tD3sM1qi02clo1_500.jpg
videos = http://bassrx.tumblr.com/video_file/86319903607/tumblr_lo8i76CWSP1qi02cl
Instead it would be better to do something like:
image_and_video_links = re.findall(" <match-image-links-or-video links> ", doc)
How can I combine the two re.findall lines into one?
I have tried using the | character but I always fail to match anything. So I'm sure I'm completely confused as to how to use it properly.

As mentioned in the comments, a pipe (|) should do the trick.
The regular expression
(src.\"(\S*?media.tumblr\S*?tumblr_\S*?jpg))|(\S*?(http\S*?video_file\S*?tumblr_[a-zA-Z0-9]*))
catches either of the two patterns.
Demo on Regex Tester

If you really want efficient...
For starters, I would cut out the \S*? in the second regex. It serves no purpose apart from an opportunity for lots of backtracking.
src.\"(\S*?media.tumblr\S*?tumblr_\S*?jpg)|(http\S*?video_file\S*?tumblr_[a-zA-Z0-9]*)
Other ideas
You can get rid of the capture groups by using a small lookbehind in the first one, allowing you to get rid of all parentheses and directly matching what you want. Not faster, but tidier:
(?<=src.\")\S*?media.tumblr\S*?tumblr_\S*?jpg|http\S*?video_file\S*?tumblr_[a-zA-Z0-9]*
Do you intend for the periods after src and media to mean "any character", or to mean "a literal period"? If the latter, escape them: \.
You can use the re.IGNORECASE option and get rid of some letters:
(?<=src.\")\S*?media.tumblr\S*?tumblr_\S*?jpg|http\S*?video_file\S*?tumblr_[a-z0-9]*