Question

The below code prints white space and not ’11’ and I can’t figure out why. Replacing [0-9]* with [0-9]{1,2} prints ’11’. Can any one help?

import re
test_string = 'cake_11xlfslijg'
pattern = '.*(?P<order>[0-9]*)'
result = re.compile(pattern).search(test_string)
if result:
    print 'result'
    print result.group('order')
else:
    print result

Answer 1

Try [0-9]+. The * translates to “zero or more”, and there are zero or more digits right at the start of your string.