Hi SO, I can't seem to create the correct regular expression to extract the correct tokens from my string. Padding the beginning of the string with a space generates the correct output, but seems less than optimal: >>> import re >>> s = '-edge_0triggered a-b | -level_Sensitive c-d | a-b-c' >>> re.findall(r'\W(-[\w_]+)',' '+s) ['-edge_0triggered', '-level_Sensitive'] # correct output Here are some of the regular expressions I've tried, does anyone have a regex suggestion that doesn't involve changing the original string and generates the correct output >>> re.findall(r'(-[\w_]+)',s) ['-edge_0triggered', '-b', '-level_Sensitive', '-d', '-b', '-c'] >>> re.findall(r'\W(-[\w_]+)',s) ['-level_Sensitive'] Thanks -- DW