Question

2 Regex question

How can I match a word or 2 words in a subpattern ()?

How can i match a word or 2 words that’s either followed by a specific word like “with” OR the end of the string $

I tried

(\w+\W*\w*\b)(\W*\bwith\b|$)

but it’s definitely not working

edit:
I’m thinking of matching both “go to mall” and “go to”, in a way that i can group “go to” in python.

Answer 1

Perhaps something like this?

>>> import re
>>> r = re.compile(r'(\w+(\W+\w+)?)(\W+with\b|\Z)')
>>> r.search('bar baz baf bag').group(1)
'baf bag'
>>> r.search('bar baz baf with bag').group(1)
'baz baf'
>>> r.search('bar baz baf without bag').group(1)
'without bag'
>>> r.search('bar with bag').group(1)
'bar'
>>> r.search('bar with baz baf with bag').group(1)
'bar'