Question

I have this following program in Python.

import re

data = '''component FA_8 is
port(   a : in bit_vector(7 downto 0);
    b: in bit_vector(7 downto 0);
    s: out bit_vector(7 downto 0);
    c: out bit);
end component;'''

m = re.search(r'''component\ +(\w+)\ +is[\ \n]+
                port\ *[(]\ +''', data, re.I | re.VERBOSE)

if m:
    print m.group()
else:
    print "Cant find pattern"

I can’t figure out why it is not working. If I change ending of regular pattern with port\ *[(]\ * then it matches.

Answer 1

If the quantifier is the only difference, then it means that there is no space in the text, could it be that it is a tab in the original string?

I would replace the escaped space by a whitespace \s. \s is matching a whitespace character, this is a space, a tab, \r and \n (and other whitespace characters)

m = re.search(r'''component\s+(\w+)\s+is\s+
            port\s*[(]\s+''', data, re.I | re.VERBOSE)