Why can't this regex find text between two markers?

Question

str = "{u'xlink:href': u'http://ip/goform/XmlApi?op=ip&port=0&target=1', u'id': u'1'}"
print re.search("/href': u'.*?',/", str)

I'm trying to get the text that starts with http:// and ends with target=1 but I'm getting None. Is my regex wrong?

I don't think you need the / at the beginning and end in python... — hackartist, May 23 '12 at 20:46
If you want to match a URL with Regex, please see this post for the correct pattern to use: http://stackoverflow.com/a/1141962/334053 — qJake, May 23 '12 at 20:46
deleting the / at the beginning and end solved my problem. But is there a way to not include the two end points in the resulting string? — Takkun, May 23 '12 at 20:50
@JBernardo: Agreed, Python is not Perl. Care to unpack that a little? — Steven Rumbalski, May 23 '12 at 20:53

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered May 23 '12 at 20:53

Yes I think you're searching for the wrong thing (if what you want is the url):

#!/usr/bin/env python 

import re

if __name__ == '__main__':
    s = "{u'xlink:href': u'http://ip/goform/XmlApi?op=ip&port=0&target=1', u'id': u'1'}"
    m = re.search(r"u'(http://.*?)',", s)
    print m.group(1)

Why can't this regex find text between two markers?

1 Answers1