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Python

Posted by Christopher Gunawan
Christopher Gunawan
10,754 Points

Question about ",\s"

import re

string = '''Love, Kenneth, kenneth+challenge@teamtreehouse.com, 555-555-5555, @kennethlove Chalkley, Andrew, andrew@teamtreehouse.co.uk, 555-555-5556, @chalkers McFarland, Dave, dave.mcfarland@teamtreehouse.com, 555-555-5557, @davemcfarland Kesten, Joy, joy@teamtreehouse.com, 555-555-5558, @joykesten'''

contacts = re.search(r''' (?P<email>[.+\w]+@[.\w]+) #email ,\s (?P<phone>\d{3}-\d{3}-\d{4}) #phone ''', string, re.X|re.M)

Here is my answer. It is correct, but my question is why do I need to add the ",\s" if I do not want to capture it?

1 Answer

Daniel Santos
Daniel Santos
34,969 Points

Hey Christopher,

If you think about it, you do want to match, you just don't care about the value. And you a point, really don't care about the spaces, but you want to make sure there are there.

For example, if I want to match a full name string in this pattern "<first_name><space><last_name>", I do want to make sure (match) that a space character is there, between the first and last name that is. That's the reason for the \s.

Make sense? Follow up otherwise :)

-Dan

Christopher Gunawan
Christopher Gunawan
10,754 Points

Thanks!