[Gamegoofs2]

I have my string, but whenever I do a regex on it turns up with None.

Here's my code:

def regex(product):
	p = re.compile('\d{2}%')
	result = p.match(product)
	print result
	return result

My input is something like this:
<em id="productYoyo_Relative">-25%</em>

The -25% changes all the time. So I just want to grab the 25 for comparison.

I've looked at Python's docs for regex, that's how I wrote what I have. Also, I tested my regular expression on gskinner and it worked there. Am I not implementing Python's regex correctly?

This post has been edited by Gamegoofs2: 15 September 2012 - 09:23 AM

[Simown]

The problem is first, you want to capture the groups that you want ( ) <--- with brackets

Second I am assuming you need to account for the minus that may or may not be there if it could be anything then just remove that character.

This will work:

def regex(product):
	p = re.compile('-?(\d{2})%')
	result = p.match(product)
	return result
....
>>> m = regex("-25%")
>>> print m.group(1)
25
>>> p = regex("25%")
>>> print p.group(1)
25

The -? means 0 or 1 minus signs so if a character is at the front, it must be a minus.

Next, (\d{2})% captures the two digits in brackets and the percent outside.

You must print the "groups" of the match. In "-25%" group 0 is: "-25%" and group 1 is the bracketed match "25"

If you need more than 2 digits change the \d{2} to \d+ or a range of values \d{2, 5}

Hope that helps

This post has been edited by Simown: 15 September 2012 - 10:19 AM

[Gamegoofs2]

It works when I just put in "-25%" or "25% but when I try it with <em id="productYoyo_Relative">-25%<em> I get ArrtibuteError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'group'

It seems since there is other text there that it doesn't work.

[Simown]

You need to match any other characters before and after so:

def regex(product):
	p = re.compile('.*-?(\d{2})%.*')
	result = p.match(product)
	return result

Will match all strings with some numbers in the middle in that format. The .* means to match any character any amount of times.

>>> x = regex('<em id="productYoyo_Relative">-25%</em>')
>>> x.group(1)
...
25

[Gamegoofs2]

Thanks again Simown! You're very helpful

[Python_4_President]

Actually, you can keep that regex simple if you use p.search instead of p.match.

match matches things from the start of the line.
search looks through the entire line.
The other behavior is identical.