Python complex regex replace - python

I'm trying to do a simple VB6 to c translator to help me port an open source game to the c language.
I want to be able to get "NpcList[NpcIndex]" from "With Npclist[NpcIndex]" using ragex and to replace it everywhere it has to be replaced. ("With" is used as a macro in VB6 that adds Npclist[NpcIndex] when ever it needs to until it founds "End With")
Example:
With Npclist[NpcIndex]
.goTo(245) <-- it should be replaced with Npclist[NpcIndex].goTo(245)
End With
Is it possible to use regex to do the job?
I've tried using a function to perfom another regex replace between the "With" and the "End With" but I can't know the text the "With" is replacing (Npclist[NpcIndex]).
Thanks in advance

I personally wouldn't trust any single-regex solution to get it right on the first time nor feel like debugging it. Instead, I would parse the code line-to-line and cache any With expression to use it to replace any . directly preceded by whitespace or by any type of brackets (add use-cases as needed):
(?<=[\s[({])\. - positive lookbehind for any character from the set + escaped literal dot
(?:(?<=[\s[({])|^)\. - use this non-capturing alternatives list if to-be-replaced . can occur on the beginning of line
import re
def convert_vb_to_c(vb_code_lines):
c_code = []
current_with = ""
for line in vb_code_lines:
if re.search(r'^\s*With', line) is not None:
current_with = line[5:] + "."
continue
elif re.search(r'^\s*End With', line) is not None:
current_with = "{error_outside_with_replacement}"
continue
line = re.sub(r'(?<=[\s[({])\.', current_with, line)
c_code.append(line)
return "\n".join(c_code)
example = """
With Npclist[NpcIndex]
.goTo(245)
End With
With hatla
.matla.tatla[.matla.other] = .matla.other2
dont.mind.me(.do.mind.me)
.next()
End With
"""
# use file_object.readlines() in real life
print(convert_vb_to_c(example.split("\n")))

You can pass a function to the sub method:
# just to give the idea of the regex
regex = re.compile(r'''With (.+)
(the-regex-for-the-VB-expression)+?
End With''')
def repl(match):
beginning = match.group(1) # NpcList[NpcIndex] in your example
return ''.join(beginning + line for line in match.group(2).splitlines())
re.sub(regex, repl, the_string)
In repl you can obtain all the information about the matching from the match object, build whichever string you want and return it. The matched string will be replaced by the string you return.
Note that you must be really careful to write the regex above. In particular using (.+) as I did matches all the line up to the newline excluded, which or may not be what you want(but I don't know VB and I have no idea which regex could go there instead to catch only what you want.
The same goes for the (the-regex-forthe-VB-expression)+. I have no idea what code could be in those lines, hence I leave to you the detail of implementing it. Maybe taking all the line can be okay, but I wouldn't trust something this simple(probably expressions can span multiple lines, right?).
Also doing all in one big regular expression is, in general, error prone and slow.
I'd strongly consider regexes only to find With and End With and use something else to do the replacements.

This may do what you need in Python 2.7. I'm assuming you want to strip out the With and End With, right? You don't need those in C.
>>> import re
>>> search_text = """
... With Np1clist[Npc1Index]
... .comeFrom(543)
... End With
...
... With Npc2list[Npc2Index]
... .goTo(245)
... End With"""
>>>
>>> def f(m):
... return '{0}{1}({2})'.format(m.group(1), m.group(2), m.group(3))
...
>>> regex = r'With\s+([^\s]*)\s*(\.[^(]+)\(([^)]+)\)[^\n]*\nEnd With'
>>> print re.sub(regex, f, search_text)
Np1clist[Npc1Index].comeFrom(543)
Npc2list[Npc2Index].goTo(245)

Related

Python: strip function definition using regex

I am a very beginner of programming and reading the book "Automate the boring stuff with Python'. In Chapter 7, there is a project practice: the regex version of strip(). My code below does not work (I use Python 3.6.1). Could anyone help?
import re
string = input("Enter a string to strip: ")
strip_chars = input("Enter the characters you want to be stripped: ")
def strip_fn(string, strip_chars):
if strip_chars == '':
blank_start_end_regex = re.compile(r'^(\s)+|(\s)+$')
stripped_string = blank_start_end_regex.sub('', string)
print(stripped_string)
else:
strip_chars_start_end_regex = re.compile(r'^(strip_chars)*|(strip_chars)*$')
stripped_string = strip_chars_start_end_regex.sub('', string)
print(stripped_string)
You can also use re.sub to substitute the characters in the start or end.
Let us say if the char is 'x'
re.sub(r'^x+', "", string)
re.sub(r'x+$', "", string)
The first line as lstrip and the second as rstrip
This just looks simpler.
When using r'^(strip_chars)*|(strip_chars)*$' string literal, the strip_chars is not interpolated, i.e. it is treated as a part of the string. You need to pass it as a variable to the regex. However, just passing it in the current form would result in a "corrupt" regex because (...) in a regex is a grouping construct, while you want to match a single char from the define set of chars stored in the strip_chars variable.
You could just wrap the string with a pair of [ and ] to create a character class, but if the variable contains, say z-a, it would make the resulting pattern invalid. You also need to escape each char to play it safe.
Replace
r'^(strip_chars)*|(strip_chars)*$'
with
r'^[{0}]+|[{0}]+$'.format("".join([re.escape(x) for x in strip_chars]))
I advise to replace * (zero or more occurrences) with + (one or more occurrences) quantifier because in most cases, when we want to remove something, we need to match at least 1 occurrence of the unnecessary string(s).
Also, you may replace r'^(\s)+|(\s)+$' with r'^\s+|\s+$' since the repeated capturing groups will keep on re-writing group values upon each iteration slightly hampering the regex execution.
#! python
# Regex Version of Strip()
import re
def RegexStrip(mainString,charsToBeRemoved=None):
if(charsToBeRemoved!=None):
regex=re.compile(r'[%s]'%charsToBeRemoved)#Interesting TO NOTE
return regex.sub('',mainString)
else:
regex=re.compile(r'^\s+')
regex1=re.compile(r'$\s+')
newString=regex1.sub('',mainString)
newString=regex.sub('',newString)
return newString
Str=' hello3123my43name is antony '
print(RegexStrip(Str))
Maybe this could help, it can be further simplified of course.

I want to split a string by a character on its first occurence, which belongs to a list of characters. How to do this in python?

Basically, I have a list of special characters. I need to split a string by a character if it belongs to this list and exists in the string. Something on the lines of:
def find_char(string):
if string.find("some_char"):
#do xyz with some_char
elif string.find("another_char"):
#do xyz with another_char
else:
return False
and so on. The way I think of doing it is:
def find_char_split(string):
char_list = [",","*",";","/"]
for my_char in char_list:
if string.find(my_char) != -1:
my_strings = string.split(my_char)
break
else:
my_strings = False
return my_strings
Is there a more pythonic way of doing this? Or the above procedure would be fine? Please help, I'm not very proficient in python.
(EDIT): I want it to split on the first occurrence of the character, which is encountered first. That is to say, if the string contains multiple commas, and multiple stars, then I want it to split by the first occurrence of the comma. Please note, if the star comes first, then it will be broken by the star.
I would favor using the re module for this because the expression for splitting on multiple arbitrary characters is very simple:
r'[,*;/]'
The brackets create a character class that matches anything inside of them. The code is like this:
import re
results = re.split(r'[,*;/]', my_string, maxsplit=1)
The maxsplit argument makes it so that the split only occurs once.
If you are doing the same split many times, you can compile the regex and search on that same expression a little bit faster (but see Jon Clements' comment below):
c = re.compile(r'[,*;/]')
results = c.split(my_string)
If this speed up is important (it probably isn't) you can use the compiled version in a function instead of having it re compile every time. Then make a separate function that stores the actual compiled expression:
def split_chars(chars, maxsplit=0, flags=0, string=None):
# see note about the + symbol below
c = re.compile('[{}]+'.format(''.join(chars)), flags=flags)
def f(string, maxsplit=maxsplit):
return c.split(string, maxsplit=maxsplit)
return f if string is None else f(string)
Then:
special_split = split_chars(',*;/', maxsplit=1)
result = special_split(my_string)
But also:
result = split_chars(',*;/', my_string, maxsplit=1)
The purpose of the + character is to treat multiple delimiters as one if that is desired (thank you Jon Clements). If this is not desired, you can just use re.compile('[{}]'.format(''.join(chars))) above. Note that with maxsplit=1, this will not have any effect.
Finally: have a look at this talk for a quick introduction to regular expressions in Python, and this one for a much more information packed journey.

RegEx to match a term before OR after another specific term

I'm looking for a squaremeter term in some kind of text using this RegExpression:
([0-9]{1,3}[\.|,]?[0-9]{1,2}?)\s?m\s?[qm|m\u00B2]
Works pretty well.
Now, this thing should only be matched if before OR after it, a string like "Wohnfläche"/"Wohnfl"/"Wfl" exists. In other words: the latter term is mandatory, however its positon is not.
Writing a RegEx for this is not the issue in general, my problem is how to write it most elegant. Currently I only see one approach:
^[.]*[Wohnfläche|Wohnfl|Wfl]([0-9]{1,3}[\.|,]?[0-9]{1,2}?)\s?m\s?[qm|m\u00B2]
new search, kombined with 'or' statement (I'm using Python)
([0-9]{1,3}[\.|,]?[0-9]{1,2}?)\s?m\s?[qm|m\u00B2][.]*[Wohnfläche|Wohnfl|Wfl]$
Ugly, isn't it? ;)
You can use alternation like this:
(?:Wohnfläche|Wohnfl|Wfl)\s*(\d{1,3}(?:[.,]\d{1,2})?)\s?m\s?(qm|m\u00B2)|(\d{1,3}(?:[.,]\d{1,2})?)\s?m\s?(qm|m\u00B2)\s*(?:Wohnfläche|Wohnfl|Wfl)
And check which capture group matched. It is just not possible to use the restrictive strings optionally in the regex on both sides, the will just be ignored.
See the regex demo
IDEONE demo:
import re
pat = re.compile(r'(?:Wohnfläche|Wohnfl|Wfl)\s*(\d{1,3}(?:[.,]\d{1,2})?)\s?m\s?(qm|m\u00B2)|(\d{1,3}(?:[.,]\d{1,2})?)\s?m\s?(qm|m\u00B2)\s*(?:Wohnfläche|Wohnfl|Wfl)')
strs = ["12,56m qm Wohnfläche", "14.54 mqm Wohnfl", "Wfl 134 m qm"]
for x in strs:
m = pat.search(x)
if m:
if m.group(1): # First alternative found a match
print("{}".format(m.group(1), " - ", m.group(2)))
else: # Second alternative "won"
print("{}".format(m.group(3), " - ", m.group(4)))
Specify a logical conjunction in the controlling application, like (pseudo-code) <area-regex>.match(string) and <text-regex>.match(string).
This assumes that any pair of matches of the two regexen on the same string will never overlap ( if they did, you'd get a false positive ). Your regexen meet this requirement.
Note that your regex for the textual context contains the additional restriction that your test string either starts or ends with a match, while in your informal description you just require a match to either occur before or after the area spec. This difference is incorporated in pt vs pt_anchored in the code below.
Python fragment (untested):
import re
...
# pa: <area_regex>
# pt: <text_regex>
# pt_anchored: <text_regex>, anchored
#
pa = re.compile ( r'([0-9]{1,3}[\.|,]?[0-9]{1,2}?)\s?m\s?[qm|m\u00B2]' )
pt = re.compile ( r'[.]*[Wohnfläche|Wohnfl|Wfl]' )
pt_anchored = re.compile ( r'^[.]*[Wohnfläche|Wohnfl|Wfl]|[.]*[Wohnfläche|Wohnfl|Wfl]$' )
if pa.match(<teststring>) and pt.match(<teststring>):
print 'Match found: '
else:
print 'No match'
...

how to split very long regular expression in python

i have a regular expression which is very long.
vpa_pattern = '(VAP) ([0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}): (.*)'
My code to match group as follows:
class ReExpr:
def __init__(self):
self.string=None
def search(self,regexp,string):
self.string=string
self.rematch = re.search(regexp, self.string)
return bool(self.rematch)
def group(self,i):
return self.rematch.group(i)
m = ReExpr()
if m.search(vpa_pattern,line):
print m.group(1)
print m.group(2)
print m.group(3)
I tried to make the regular expression pattern to multiple line in following ways,
vpa_pattern = '(VAP) \
([0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}):\
(.*)'
Or Even i tried:
vpa_pattern = re.compile(('(VAP) \
([0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}):\
(.*)'))
But above methods are not working. For each group i have a space () after open and close parenthesis. I guess it is not picking up when i split to multiple lines.
Look at re.X flag. It allows comments and ignores white spaces in regex.
a = re.compile(r"""\d + # the integral part
\. # the decimal point
\d * # some fractional digits""", re.X)
Python allows writing text strings in parts if enclosed in parenthesis:
>>> text = ("alfa" "beta"
... "gama")
...
>>> text
'alfabetagama'
or in your code:
text = ("alfa" "beta"
"gama" "delta"
"omega")
print text
will print
"alfabetagamadeltaomega"
Its actually quite simple. You already use the {} notation. Use it again. So instead of:
'([0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}):'
which is just a repeat of [0-9A-Fa-f]{2}: 6 times, you can use:
'([0-9A-Fa-f]{2}:){6}'
We can even simplify it further by using \d to represent digits:
'([\dA-Fa-f]{2}:){6}'
NOTE: Depending on what re function you use, you can pass in re.IGNORE_CASE and simplify that chunk down to [\da-f]{2}:
So your final regex is:
'(VAP) ([\dA-Fa-f]{2}:){6} (.*)'

Python: re.compile and re.sub

Question part 1
I got this file f1:
<something #37>
<name>George Washington</name>
<a23c>Joe Taylor</a23c>
</something #37>
and I want to re.compile it that it looks like this f1: (with spaces)
George Washington Joe Taylor
I tried this code but it kind of deletes everything:
import re
file = open('f1.txt')
fixed = open('fnew.txt', 'w')
text = file.read()
match = re.compile('<.*>')
for unwanted in text:
fixed_doc = match.sub(r' ', text)
fixed.write(fixed_doc)
My guess is the re.compile line but I'm not quite sure what to do with it. I'm not supposed to use 3rd party extensions. Any ideas?
Question part 2
I had a different question about comparing 2 files I got this code from Alfe:
from collections import Counter
def test():
with open('f1.txt') as f:
contentsI = f.read()
with open('f2.txt') as f:
contentsO = f.read()
tokensI = Counter(value for value in contentsI.split()
if value not in [])
tokensO = Counter(value for value in contentsO.split()
if value not in [])
return not (tokensI - tokensO) and not (set(tokensO) - set(tokensI))
Is it possible to implement the re.compile and re.sub in the 'if value not in []' section?
I will explain what happens with your code:
import re
file = open('f1.txt')
fixed = open('fnew.txt','w')
text = file.read()
match = re.compile('<.*>')
for unwanted in text:
fixed_doc = match.sub(r' ',text)
fixed.write(fixed_doc)
The instruction text = file.read() creates an object text of type string named text.
Note that I use bold characters text to express an OBJECT, and text to express the name == IDENTIFIER of this object.
As a consequence of the instruction for unwanted in text:, the identifier unwanted is successively assigned to each character referenced by the text object.
Besides, re.compile('<.*>') creates an object of type RegexObject (which I personnaly call compiled) regex or simply regex , <.*> being only the regex pattern).
You assign this compiled regex object to the identifier match: it's a very bad practice, because match is already the name of a method of regex objects in general, and of the one you created in particular, so then you could write match.match without error.
match is also the name of a function of the re module.
This use of this name for your particular need is very confusing. You must avoid that.
There's the same flaw with the use of file as a name for the file-handler of file f1. file is already an identifier used in the language, you must avoid it.
Well. Now this bad-named match object is defined, the instruction fixed_doc = match.sub(r' ',text) replaces all the occurences found by the regex match in text with the replacement r' '.
Note that it's completely superfluous to write r' ' instead of just ' ' because there's absolutely nothing in ' ' that needs to be escaped. It's a fad of some anxious people to write raw strings every time they have to write a string in a regex problem.
Because of its pattern <.+> in which the dot symbol means "greedily eat every character situated between a < and a > except if it is a newline character" , the occurences catched in the text by match are each line until the last > in it.
As the name unwanted doesn't appear in this instruction, it is the same operation that is done for each character of the text, one after the other. That is to say: nothing interesting.
To analyze the execution of a programm, you should put some printing instructions in your code, allowing to understand what happens. For example, if you do print repr(fixed_doc), you'll see the repeated printing of this: ' \n \n \n '. As I said: nothing interesting.
There's one more default in your code: you open files, but you don't shut them. It is mandatory to shut files, otherwise it could happen some weird phenomenons, that I personnally observed in some of my codes before I realized this need. Some people pretend it isn't mandatory, but it's false.
By the way, the better manner to open and shut files is to use the with statement. It does all the work without you have to worry about.
.
So , now I can propose you a code for your first problem:
import re
def ripl(mat=None,li = []):
if mat==None:
li[:] = []
return
if mat.group(1):
li.append(mat.span(2))
return ''
elif mat.span() in li:
return ''
else:
return mat.group()
r = re.compile('</[^>]+>'
'|'
'<([^>]+)>(?=.*?(</\\1>))',
re.DOTALL)
text = '''<something #37>
<name>George <wxc>Washington</name>
<a23c>Joe </zazaza>Taylor</a23c>
</something #37>'''
print '1------------------------------------1'
print text
print '2------------------------------------2'
ripl()
print r.sub(ripl,text)
print '3------------------------------------3'
result
1------------------------------------1
<something #37>
<name>George <wxc>Washington</name>
<a23c>Joe </zazaza>Taylor</a23c>
</something #37>
2------------------------------------2
George <wxc>Washington
Joe </zazaza>Taylor
3------------------------------------3
The principle is as follows:
When the regex detects a tag,
- if it's an end tag, it matches
- if it's a start tag, it matches only if there is a corresponding end tag somewhere further in the text
For each match, the method sub() of the regex r calls the function ripl() to perform the replacement.
If the match is with a start tag (which is necessary followed somewhere in the text by its corresponding end tag, by construction of the regex), then ripl() returns ''.
If the match is with an end tag, ripl() returns '' only if this end tag has previously in the text been detected has being the corresponding end tag of a previous start tag. This is done possible by recording in a list li the span of each corresponding end tag's span each time a start tag is detected and matching.
The recording list li is defined as a default argument in order that it's always the same list that is used at each call of the function ripl() (please, refer to the functionning of default argument to undertsand, because it's subtle).
As a consequence of the definition of li as a parameter receiving a default argument, the list object li would retain all the spans recorded when analyzing several text in case several texts would be analyzed successively. In order to avoid the list li to retain spans of past text matches, it is necessary to make the list empty. I wrote the function so that the first parameter is defined with a default argument None: that allows to call ripl() without argument before any use of it in a regex's sub() method.
Then, one must think to write ripl() before any use of it.
.
If you want to remove the newlines of the text in order to obtain the precise result you showed in your question, the code must be modified to:
import re
def ripl(mat=None,li = []):
if mat==None:
li[:] = []
return
if mat.group(1):
return ''
elif mat.group(2):
li.append(mat.span(3))
return ''
elif mat.span() in li:
return ''
else:
return mat.group()
r = re.compile('( *\n *)'
'|'
'</[^>]+>'
'|'
'<([^>]+)>(?=.*?(</\\2>)) *',
re.DOTALL)
text = '''<something #37>
<name>George <wxc>Washington</name>
<a23c>Joe </zazaza>Taylor</a23c>
</something #37>'''
print '1------------------------------------1'
print text
print '2------------------------------------2'
ripl()
print r.sub(ripl,text)
print '3------------------------------------3'
result
1------------------------------------1
<something #37>
<name>George <wxc>Washington</name>
<a23c>Joe </zazaza>Taylor</a23c>
</something #37>
2------------------------------------2
George <wxc>WashingtonJoe </zazaza>Taylor
3------------------------------------3
You can use Beautiful Soup to do this easily:
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
file = open('f1.txt')
fixed = open('fnew.txt','w')
#now for some soup
soup = BeautifulSoup(file)
fixed.write(str(soup.get_text()).replace('\n',' '))
The output of the above line will be:
George Washington Joe Taylor
(Atleast this works with the sample you gave me)
Sorry I don't understand part 2, good luck!
Don't need re.compile
import re
clean_string = ''
with open('f1.txt') as f1:
for line in f1:
match = re.search('.+>(.+)<.+', line)
if match:
clean_string += (match.group(1))
clean_string += ' '
print(clean_string) # 'George Washington Joe Taylor'
Figured the first part out it was the missing '?'
match = re.compile('<.*?>')
does the trick.
Anyway still not sure about the second questions. :/
For part 1 try the below code snippet. However consider using a library like beautifulsoup as suggested by Moe Jan
import re
import os
def main():
f = open('sample_file.txt')
fixed = open('fnew.txt','w')
#pattern = re.compile(r'(?P<start_tag>\<.+?\>)(?P<content>.*?)(?P<end_tag>\</.+?\>)')
pattern = re.compile(r'(?P<start><.+?>)(?P<content>.*?)(</.+?>)')
output_text = []
for text in f:
match = pattern.match(text)
if match is not None:
output_text.append(match.group('content'))
fixed_content = ' '.join(output_text)
fixed.write(fixed_content)
f.close()
fixed.close()
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
For part 2:
I am not completely clear with what you are asking - however my guess is that you want to do something like if re.sub(value) not in []. However, note that you need to call re.compile only once prior to initializing the Counter instance. It would be better if you clarify the second part of your question.
Actually, I would recommend you to use the built-in Python diff module to find difference between two files. Using this way better than using your own diff algorithm, since the diff logic is well tested and widely used and is not vulnerable to logical or programmatic errors resulting from presence of spurious newlines, tab and space characters.

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