How to match non-printable characters in a python regular expression?

Question

How do you match non-printable characters in a python regular expression? In my case I have a string that has a combination of printable and non-printable characters.

Example String: "Det 3 @ NYY 5 ?7" where the ? is either 0x7f or 0x80.

In the above example I need to match 0x7f or 0x80. How do I specify this in a python regex?

score 13 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 01 '11 at 15:08

13

Use a character range.

'[\x7f\x80]'

answered Apr 01 '11 at 15:08

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

776,304
153
1,341
1,358

1

@Ignacio Since _dehlenbe_ seems to be rarely present on SO, I ask you: **'?'** isn't a non-printable character, but _dehlenbe_ used this character as a symbol in **"Det 3 @ NYY 5 ?7"** to represent a non-printable character that have no symbol consisting in only one character ? Is it that ? – eyquem Aug 24 '11 at 11:14
@eyquem: Correct. In globs, the `?` wildcard matches a single character. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Aug 24 '11 at 20:07

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 01 '11 at 15:09

1

Maybe you can try

[^[:print:]]

for non-printable.

answered Apr 01 '11 at 15:09

kurumi

25,121
5
44
52

8

POSIX character sets aren't supported in python – kevins Aug 14 '14 at 19:22
1

it is if you use the `regex` module – not2qubit Oct 26 '18 at 10:08
Works as expected, however it does include white space characters such as \t which may not be the intent. – cagney Oct 11 '19 at 16:05

How to match non-printable characters in a python regular expression?

2 Answers2