<rho
...@wildebst.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> On Fri, 08 May 2009 00:51:14 +0100, Rajanikanth Jammalamadaka
> <rajanika
...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi
>> I have a text file as follows:
>> testName = (
>> someParam = value1
>> anotherParam = (value2, value3)
>> )
>> how do I write a regular expression to get all the contents of the
>> file which are between the first and last parentheses.
> You don't, or at least you don't without some cast-iron guarantees
> that your file will look *exactly* like this. If you can guarantee
> that, then this should work:
> import re
> f = open(filename)
> data = f.read()
> m = re.match(r"""[^(]*\( # Find the first open parenthesis
> (.*) # Gobble up everything...
> \)[^)]*$ # ...to the last close paren""",
> data, re.X)
> if m:
> print m.group(1)
> Notice that this will do *exactly* what you asked; pick up
> everything between the first and the last parentheses. In
> particular, if your text looks like this:
> testName1 = (
> someParam1 = value1
> anotherParam1 = (value2, value3)
> )
> testName2 = (
> sameParam2 = value4
> )
> ...then what you'll get out is:
> someParam1 = value1
> anotherParam1 = (value2, value3)
> )
> testName2 = (
> sameParam2 = value4
> You can't get around that with regular expressions, you'll
> have to parse your way through the input string counting
> open and close parentheses as you go.
> --
> Rhodri James *-* Wildebeeste Herder to the Masses
> --
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
