Question

I have a file with the following grammar:

<whitespace_sequence><string><whitespace_sequence><--More--><whitespace_sequence><string_sequence><newline>

Using Python (2.4), I would like to remove the sequence:

 "<whitespace_sequence><--More--><whitespace_sequence>" from the above grammar.

I am using the following regex pattern:

x = re.compile("(\s+)("--More--")(\s+)")

but it’s not matching the sequence that I need to remove.

Answer 1

It looks like the problem with your regex is the double quotes. Without them, it works fine:

>>> sample = '   string    --More--    anotherstring    \n'
>>> import re
>>> re.search(r'(\s+)(--More--)(\s+)', sample).groups()
('    ', '--More--', '    ')

FWIW, here is a great resource for developing a regex directly from a sample string:
http://txt2re.com/

Another good resource to learn more about regular expressions is: http://www.regular-expressions.info/