Regex split into groups

python-2.7regex

My regex-fu is weak today. I'm trying to capture groups in a string into 5 parts with the format:

substring delimiter substring number(space) substring

I've tried using word boundaries but no success. I've resorted to using *.(greedy and lazy, I know) which is bit better than not working at all

Here's what I have:

import re

s = "FOREVER - Alabaster Cuttlefish - 01 This Style Is Cheese"

m = re.compile("(.*)(\s-\s)(\d{1,3}\s)(.*)")
g = m.match(s)
if g:
    print m.match(s).group(1) # FOREVER
    print m.match(s).group(2) #  - 
    print m.match(s).group(3) # Alabaster Cuttlefish
    print m.match(s).group(4) # 01 

    # fail
    # print m.match(s).group(5) # This Style Is Cheese

Group 5 doesn't exist because it gets captures in the first group. hence my quandary.

Best Answer

You are very close. Replace the regular expression with:

m = re.compile("(.*?)(\s-\s)([^\d]*)(\d{1,3}\s)(.*)")

If you don't want the trailing dash at the end of Alabaster Cuttlefish, use:

import re

s = "FOREVER - Alabaster Cuttlefish - 01 This Style Is Cheese"

m = re.compile("(.*)(\s-\s)(.*)(\s-\s)(\d{1,3}\s)(.*)")
g = m.search(s)
if g:
    print g.group(1) # FOREVER
    print g.group(2) #  - 
    print g.group(3) # Alabaster Cuttlefish
    print g.group(5) # 01 
    print g.group(6) # This Style Is Cheese
Related Topic