Question

I have written a python script (my very first) that accepts input of a string and then uses re.search to create groups from the string for later use.

The input string would like something like this:

NSC_sdiakjfean=ffffffff3c19594d45525d5f4f58455e445a4a423660

The re.search I’m currently using is:

s = re.search('NSC_([a-zA-Z0-9\-\_\.]*)=[0-9a-f]{8}([0-9a-f]{8})[0-9a-f]{24}([0-9a-f]{4})',name)

The problem that I’ve found is that sometimes the input I want to use is missing this section [0-9a-f]{24} so my python script crashes with an exception and doesn’t capture the last group.

Is there any regex (yes I’ve googled this lots) that I can use for the last group start at the end of the input string and just group the last 4 digits?

Thanks in advance.

Adam

Answer 1

$ matches the end of the string.

>>> import re
>>> re.search("1234$","lkjlkj1234") # matches
<_sre.SRE_Match object at 0x6a10578>
>>> re.search("1234$","lkjlkj1234ff") # does not match
>>>

So the expression you may want is

s = re.search('([0-9a-f]{4})$',name)