How do I use a variable containing a string in brackets with regex?

Asked May 04 '20 at 16:02

Active May 04 '20 at 16:02

Viewed 17 times

import re

content = "This is a [story] to be told"
tag = r'[story]'

print(re.compile(rf'{tag}').search(content))

this returns: <re.Match object; span=(3, 4), match='s'>

I am using the 'r' prefix in the variable and the 'rf' prefix in the regex. Where am I going wrong? It keeps interpreting my variable as a coded string.

In my actual scenario I have a list of tags: [r'[TAG1]', r'[TAG2]', r'[TAG3]'] which I want to iterate over. I have solved the problem by escaping with '\' in every tag's string assignment but this makes the tags unusable when referencing them later, as 1 of the '\'s is not in the beginning or end of string (since strings are immutable).

I could try using slices but that seems incredibly inefficient. Is there a regex solution?

asked May 04 '20 at 16:02

Poeder Ruiker

`r` does nothing here. You need `rf'{re.escape(tag)}'`. However, it does not make sense if you just check for fixed values in a string, use `if tag in content` – Wiktor Stribiżew May 04 '20 at 16:03
solved. Thanks, overlooked the article. – Poeder Ruiker May 04 '20 at 16:06
@WiktorStribiżew I appreciate the addition. In my case however I also need the span – Poeder Ruiker May 04 '20 at 16:09

How do I use a variable containing a string in brackets with regex?

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