Re.search
re.search is a Python re-module function that searches a string for the first match of a regular-expression pattern and returns a match object or None.
The Quick Python Book, Fourth Edition
search is a regular-expression pattern method that looks for the first match of a pattern within a string and returns a match object or None.
- How it is used
- Finds matching text in strings, either to test a condition or to extract fields from a record.
- How deep it goes
- Works through compiled-pattern searches and match-object extraction, but leaves advanced search controls to documentation.
- Examples
- Counts file lines containing `hello` and extracts names and phone numbers from matching records.
- What you can do after
- Apply it via Python’s `re` module to test strings and retrieve named fields from successful matches.
Read how The Quick Python Book, Fourth Edition explains re.search →
Python How-To
- How it is used
- Finds the first occurrence of a regular-expression pattern anywhere in a string.
- How deep it goes
- Explains direct and compiled calls, Match objects, positions, conditionals, and differences from match, findall, and finditer.
- Examples
- Uses digit-word patterns, matched text, spans, and direct calls on strings.
- What you can do after
- Apply it via Python's re module to locate a match and inspect its text and character positions.
Related concepts
- match objectproduces · A match object is a regular-expression result structure containing matched text and providing access to its location and captured groups.
- regular expressionused by · A formal pattern notation that describes sets of strings and enables text to be matched, searched, extracted, or transformed.
- re.matchcontrasts with · re.match() is a Python regular-expression function that attempts to match a pattern at the beginning of a string.
- Noneproduces · None is Python’s singleton object representing the absence of a value or meaningful result.
- regex engineuses · A regular-expression engine is software that interprets regular-expression patterns and applies them to text for matching, searching, splitting, or transformation.
- similarity searchkind of · Similarity search is a retrieval technique that finds or ranks items by comparing their representations with a query according to a similarity or distance measure.
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