Question

This is a pretty straight forward attempt. I haven’t been using python for too long. Seems to work but I am sure I have much to learn. Someone let me know if I am way off here. Needs to find patterns, write the first line which matches, and then add a summary message for remaining consecutive lines which match pattern and return modified string.

Just to be clear…regex .*Dog.* would take

Cat Dog My Dog Her Dog Mouse 

and return

Cat Dog ::::: Pattern .*Dog.* repeats 2 more times. Mouse   #!/usr/bin/env python #  import re import types  def remove_repeats (l_string, l_regex):    '''Take a string, remove similar lines and replace with a summary message.     l_regex accepts strings and tuples.    '''     # Convert string to tuple.    if type(l_regex) == types.StringType:       l_regex = l_regex,      for t in l_regex:       r = ''       p = ''       for l in l_string.splitlines(True):          if l.startswith('::::: Pattern'):             r = r + l          else:             if re.search(t, l): # If line matches regex.                 m += 1                 if m == 1: # If this is first match in a set of lines add line to file.                    r = r + l                 elif m > 1: # Else update the message string.                    p = '::::: Pattern '' + t + '' repeats ' + str(m-1) +  ' more times.\n'             else:                 if p: # Write the message string if it has value.                    r = r + p                    p = ''                 m = 0                 r = r + l        if p: # Write the message if loop ended in a pattern.           r = r + p           p = ''        l_string = r # Reset string to modified string.     return l_string 

Answer 1

The rematcher function seems to do what you want:

def rematcher(re_str, iterable):      matcher= re.compile(re_str)     in_match= 0     for item in iterable:         if matcher.match(item):             if in_match == 0:                 yield item             in_match+= 1         else:             if in_match > 1:                 yield '%s repeats %d more times\n' % (re_str, in_match-1)             in_match= 0             yield item     if in_match > 1:         yield '%s repeats %d more times\n' % (re_str, in_match-1)  import sys, re  for line in rematcher('.*Dog.*', sys.stdin):     sys.stdout.write(line) 

EDIT

In your case, the final string should be:

final_string= '\n'.join(rematcher('.*Dog.*', your_initial_string.split('\n')))