Question

I need help with re module. I have pattern:

pattern = re.compile('''first_condition\((.*)\)
extra_condition\((.*)\)
testing\((.*)\)
other\((.*)\)''', re.UNICODE)

That’s what happens if I run regex on the following text:

text = '''first_condition(enabled)
extra_condition(disabled)
testing(example)
other(something)'''
result = pattern.findall(text)
print(result)
[('enabled', 'disabled', 'example', 'something')]

But if one or two lines were missed, regex returns empty list. E.g. my text is:

text = '''first_condition(enabled)
other(other)'''

What I want to get:

[('enabled', '', '', 'something')]

I could do it in several commands, but I think that it will be slower than doing it in one regex. Original code uses sed, so it is very fast. I could do it using sed, but I need cross-platform way to do it. Is it possible to do? Tnanks!

P.S. It will be also great if sequence of strings will be free, not fixed:

text = '''other(other)
first_condition(enabled)'''

must return absolutely the same:

[('enabled', '', '', 'something')]

Answer 1

I would parse it to a dictionary first:

import re

keys = ['first_condition', 'extra_condition', 'testing', 'other'] 
d = dict(re.findall(r'^(.*)\((.*)\)$', text, re.M))
result = [d.get(key, '') for key in keys]

See it working online: ideone