cedric briner wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I do not understand the behaviour of this:
>
> import re
> re.search('(a)*','aaa').groups()
> ('a',)
>
> I was thinking that the ``*'' will operate on the group delimited by the
> parenthesis. And so, I was expecting this result:
> ('a', 'a', 'a')
>
> Is there something I'am missing ?
It just doesn't work that way. The returned group is the last string
matched by the group:
In [17]: re.search('(a.)*','azabac').groups()
Out[17]: ('ac',)
Use re.findall() instead:
In [18]: re.findall('a.', 'azabac')
Out[18]: ['az', 'ab', 'ac']
If you want overlapping matches you have to search in a loop and collect
them yourself, findall() gives only non-overlapping matches.
Kent
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