How do I match a string which contains a specific string using regex lazily?

Question

I would like to match a string using regex in python which contains a specific string (lazy match) but haven't figured out how to do so.

For instance, in the following example, how do I return just '<tag1>some text<tag2>some other text</tag2><tag1>' and not the whole string

#!/bin/python3
import re
pattern = r'(<([a-zA-Z0-9]+?)\b[^>]*>.*?<tag2>some other text</tag2>.*?</\2>)'
text = '<root> <tag1>some text<tag2>some other text</tag2></tag1> </root>'
print(re.search(pattern, text, re.DOTALL).groups(0))

The code above prints <root> <tag1>some text<tag2>some other text</tag2></tag1> </root> when I want it to print <tag1>some text<tag2>some other text</tag2></tag1> Of course, all of this assuming that there can be any tag in the place of tag1

It might be better to use an xml parser. See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags — The fourth bird, Aug 24 '19 at 08:58
Thanks for the suggestion, however, for my use case, it is unsuitable. — Gionikva, Aug 24 '19 at 09:12

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 24 '19 at 09:09

0

Turns out, the solution is quite simple,here's the regex that works:

.*(<([a-zA-Z0-9]+?)\b[^>]*>.*?<tag2>some other text</tag2>.*?</\2>).*

answered Aug 24 '19 at 09:09

Gionikva

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How do I match a string which contains a specific string using regex lazily?

1 Answers1