Question

I am trying to parse an output of about a hundred lines. The format of this output is as such:

<random text> STATION "STATION_NAME_ONE": <random text>
<random text> IP Address: 0.0.0.0 <random text>
<SEVERAL LINES OF RANDOM TEXT>

<random text> STATION "STATION_NAME_TWO": <random text>
<random text> IP Address: 1.1.1.1 <random text>
<SEVERAL LINES OF RANDOM TEXT>

... and so on

I know the IP Address of the station I am looking for. Using the IP address, I am trying to construct a regex that will find the station name. The station name can be any length and can contain any number of numbers/letters/underscores. The station name will always be preceded by STATION and will always be followed by a colon. The IP Address will always be on the line following the station name and will always be preceded by IP Address:.

Note there are several stations with different station names and IP Addresses. The ‘random text’ can be of any length and contain any symbol/number/letter.

So far my attempts have been:

re.search('(?<=STATION ).*?(?=:.*IP Address: %s)' % sta_ip, output, re.DOTALL)

but obviously this will return pretty much the first station name every time.

How would you make a regex that can search for the specified station name? Is this possible?

Answer 1

Edit
I’ve got it. The key is that the station name and IP are only separated by one newline, so we can hardcode that newline.

re.search('STATION(?P<StationName>.*?):.*?\n.*?IP Address: %s' % sta_ip, output).group("StationName")