Python regular expression implementation details

Posted by Tom on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Tom
Published on 2009-05-09T22:12:50Z Indexed on 2010/03/26 0:33 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 498

Filed under:

python

|

regex

|

Implementation

A question that I answered got me wondering:

How are regular expressions implemented in Python? What sort of efficiency guarantees are there? Is the implementation "standard", or is it subject to change?

I thought that regular expressions would be implemented as DFAs, and therefore were very efficient (requiring at most one scan of the input string). Laurence Gonsalves raised an interesting point that not all Python regular expressions are regular. (His example is r"(a+)b\1", which matches some number of a's, a b, and then the same number of a's as before). This clearly cannot be implemented with a DFA.

So, to reiterate: what are the implementation details and guarantees of Python regular expressions?

It would also be nice if someone could give some sort of explanation (in light of the implementation) as to why the regular expressions "cat|catdog" and "catdog|cat" lead to different search results in the string "catdog", as mentioned in the question that I referenced before.

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about python

unmet dependencies in Ubuntu 12.04

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I tried today to install a dvb-card on my Ubuntu 12.04 (Linux blauhai-linux 3.2.0-25-generic #40-Ubuntu SMP Wed May 23 20:30:51 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux ). The installation failed with an error. After that, i tried to install python (it was already installed but i got this error): linux:~$… >>> More
How can I get sikuli-ide to work?

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I installed sikuli-ide with sudo apt-get install sikuli-ide Everything was fine until I tried to start it from the terminal. I typed sikuli-ide But the only response I got was [info] locale: en_US The application was not started, furthermore there is no desktop file and sikuli-ide does not… >>> More
Getting PATH right for python after MacPorts install

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I can't import some python libraries (PIL, psycopg2) that I just installed with MacPorts. I looked through these forums, and tried to adjust my PATH variable in $HOME/.bash_profile in order to fix this but it did not work. I added the location of PIL and psycopg2 to PATH. I know that Terminal is… >>> More
call python with system() in R to run a python script emulating the python console

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I want to pass a chunk of Python code to Python in R with something like system('python ...'), and I'm wondering if there is an easy way to emulate the python console in this case. For example, suppose the code is "print 'hello world'", how can I get the output like this in R? >>> print… >>> More
Python - Calling a non python program from python?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi, I am currently struggling to call a non python program from a python script. I have a ~1000 files that when passed through this C++ program will generate ~1000 outputs. Each output file must have a distinct name. The command I wish to run is of the form: program_name -input -output -o1 -o2… >>> More

Related posts about regex

Find multiple regex in each line and skip result if one of the regex doesn't match

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have a list of variables: variables = ['VariableA', 'VariableB','VariableC'] which I'm going to search for, line by line ifile = open("temp.txt",'r') d = {} match = zeros(len(variables)) for line in ifile: emptyCells=0 for i in range(len(variables)): regex = r'('+variables[i]+r')[:|=|\(](-… >>> More
OWASP Regex Repository: Is this regex correct?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I was looking at the regular expression for validating various data types from the (OWASP Regex Repository). One of the regular expressions in there is called safetext and looks like: ^[a-zA-Z0-9\s.\-]+$ My first question is: Is this regular expression correct? complementary question If this… >>> More
Make a Perl-style regex interpreter behave like a basic or extended regex interpreter

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I am writing a tool to help students learn regular expressions. I will probably be writing it in Java. The idea is this: the student types in a regular expression and the tool shows which parts of a text will get matched by the regex. Simple enough. But I want to support several different regex… >>> More
JS regex isn't matching, even thought it works with a regex tester

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm writing a piece of client-side javascript code that takes a function and finds the derivative of it, however, the regex that's supposed to match with the power rule fails to work in the context of the javascript program, even though it sucessfully matches when it's used with an independent regex… >>> More
c# RegEx with "|"

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I need to be able to check for a pattern with | in them. For example an expression like d*|*t should return true for a string like "dtest|test". I'm no regex hero so I just tried a couple of things, like: Regex Pattern = new Regex("s*\|*d"); //unable to build because of single backslash Regex Pattern… >>> More