Python regex extract strings between matching strings, including matching strings

Question

I am trying to extract a text between two strings including the anchored ones. The file content is simplified as variable like this:-

variable = '70026 TTBB 70128 70026 00020 01006 ' \
           '11925 04300 22919 03903 33911 00114 ' \
           '44880 02233 55834 00227 66806 02056 ' \
           '77788 00647 88771 00661 41414 /////=' \
           'PPBB 70128 70026 90001 02512 01510 ' \
           '03013 90234 05012 04022 04521 90567 '\
           '04533 04025 03023 9089/ 02526 02525 '\
           '91246 02022 01521 9535/ 08510 04006=' \
           'TTAA 70121 70026 99020 01006 02512 ' \
           '00171 00301 03014 92793 04300 05014 ' \
           '85472 00627 04029 70025 03947 02027 ' \
           '31313 42408 81101  03026='

What I would like to get is that strings between TT to = (including these anchores) and save all matching strings as list. The expected output is:-

['TTBB 70128 ... 88771 41414 /////=', 'TTAA 70121 ... 42408 81101  03026=']

What I tried is:-

print(re.findall(r'TT(.*?)=', variable))

Which gives me close to what I want as shown below:-

['BB 70128 ... 88771 41414 /////', 'AA 70121 ... 42408 81101  03026']

As you can see above, the match strings are not included. So how do I tell re to include TT and = in the result.

TJR · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-23 15:15:25Z

2

If I understood correctly, you need to group the TT and the = too:

print(re.findall(r'(TT.*?=)', variable))

answered Jul 23, 2020 at 15:15

TJR

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3 Comments

sundar_ima Over a year ago

It works if the variable is in same line. But in a file, there are many such code blocks which contain multiple line brakes between TT and =. How do you do that?

sundar_ima Over a year ago

Never mind. I had to remove all \n characters to make it as single variable.

TJR Over a year ago

You could also use the re.DOTALL flag if you would like to group line breaks, e.g. print(re.findall(r'(TT.*?=)', variable, re.DOTALL))

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