Regular expressions, often referred to as regex or regexp, are a powerful tool for text processing and pattern matching. If you’ve ever found yourself grappling with complex string manipulations, regular expressions in Python are here to simplify your life. In this guide, we’ll break down the basics of regular expressions, providing clear examples to help you understand and apply this indispensable skill in your Python projects.
What are Regular Expressions?
At its core, a regular expression is a sequence of characters that defines a search pattern. It’s a mini-language for specifying text patterns you want to match within strings. Whether you’re validating user input, extracting specific data from a text document, or searching through log files, regular expressions offer a concise and flexible solution.
Simple Pattern Matching with re.match
Let’s start with a basic example using the re.match function. Suppose you want to check if a string starts with the word "Hello."
import re
pattern = r"Hello"
text1 =…