Text data is ubiquitous in various domains, from web scraping to natural language processing. Parsing and extracting meaningful information from this unstructured data can be challenging. However, with the power of regular expressions in Python, the process becomes much more manageable.
In this article, we’ll explore how to effectively parse text data using regular expressions, accompanied by clear and practical examples.
Introduction to Text Data Parsing
Parsing text data involves breaking down raw text into structured components, such as extracting specific patterns, entities, or information. Regular expressions provide a robust and efficient mechanism for performing such tasks.
Extracting Email Addresses
Let’s start with a common scenario: extracting email addresses from a piece of text using regular expressions.
import re
text = 'Contact us at support@example.com or info@example.org for assistance.'
pattern = r'\b[A-Za-z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Za-z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z|a-z]{2,}\b'
email_addresses = re.findall(pattern, text)
print(email_addresses) #…