Question

I’m using Python and trying to fetch an XML file from a list of files using regular expressions, but I’ve never used regular expressions until now.

Suppose I had a list of files:

files = ['.bash_logout', '20120910NYP.xml', '.bash_profile', '.bashrc', '.mozilla', 'testfile_248.xml']

Now I need to fetch the file of format 20120910NYP.xml so I decided to write a regular expression:

import re
feedRegex = # ?
feedFiles = filter((lambda x: re.search(feedRegEx, x) != None), files)

In the above code, how would I write a regular expression for feedRegex to find XML files in that format from the list?

Edited Code:

Need to give list of files and feedregex code to this function every time i need this function

import re

def paramikoFetchLatestFeedFile(list_of_files, feedRegEx):

    self.files = list_of_files
    self.feedRegEx = feedRegEx

    feedFiles = filter((lambda x: re.search(self.feedRegEx, x) != None), self.files)

Answer 1

Obviously you want something like

regex = re.compile('^\d{8}.NYP.xml$')

Please read the regular expressions documentation. This is truly regex basics.