Book Image

Mastering Python Regular Expressions

Book Image

Mastering Python Regular Expressions

Overview of this book

Regular expressions are used by many text editors, utilities, and programming languages to search and manipulate text based on patterns. They are considered the Swiss army knife of text processing. Powerful search, replacement, extraction and validation of strings, repetitive and complex tasks are reduced to a simple pattern using regular expressions. Mastering Python Regular Expressions will teach you about Regular Expressions, starting from the basics, irrespective of the language being used, and then it will show you how to use them in Python. You will learn the finer details of what Python supports and how to do it, and the differences between Python 2.x and Python 3.x. The book starts with a general review of the theory behind the regular expressions to follow with an overview of the Python regex module implementation, and then moves on to advanced topics like grouping, looking around, and performance. You will explore how to leverage Regular Expressions in Python, some advanced aspects of Regular Expressions and also how to measure and improve their performance. You will get a better understanding of the working of alternators and quantifiers. Also, you will comprehend the importance of grouping before finally moving on to performance optimization techniques like the RegexBuddy Tool and Backtracking. Mastering Python Regular Expressions provides all the information essential for a better understanding of Regular Expressions in Python.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)

Summary


In this chapter, we learned the concept of zero-with assertions and how it can be useful to find the exact thing in a text without interfering in the result content.

We have also learned how to leverage the four types of look around mechanisms: positive look ahead, negative look ahead, positive look behind, and negative look behind.

We also reviewed, with special interest, the limitation of the two types of look behind with the variable assertions.

With this, we conclude the travel through the basic and advanced techniques around regular expressions. Now, we are ready to focus on performance tuning in the next chapter.