How to replace special regex chars in Python?

Question

I need to match the following pattern:

text1.cps.text2
text1.text2.cps.text3
cps.text1

where text1, text2 are some random words. cps is one of several possible words. So I wrote the following regexp:

pattern = "(\w+\.)*?({0})(\w+\.)*"

And than I iterate over list of possible words:

for word in ['cps.','cps.tbl.']:
   p = pattern.format(word)

So the problem is that item from the possible words can contain special regex chars. So I am looking for function that replaces each special character into something like that:

cps\. and cps\.tbl\.

Have you tried raw strings ? – Rockybilly Jul 17 '16 at 15:15 — Rockybilly, Jul 17 '16 at 15:15

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 17 '16 at 15:16

1

The re module defines an escape function which does just that. Something like:

for word in words:
    pattern = re.escape(word)
    ...

answered Jul 17 '16 at 15:16

ig0774

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How to replace special regex chars in Python?

1 Answers1