Regex – Return first group match

Question

regex newbie here.

Say that I have the following string:

818y1873+130I have some text here09 124i10029102lsdgn2in3>31<
mkm1ikm12klni12m4j12??=?!=I"=and then some text heremsiJR310>39<0MK)==!)="!

What I would like to retrieve is the 31.

So, putting my query in English terms: after the string I have some text here followed by any character, the first (double) digits you find that are/is encapsulated by ><, retrieve that group for me.

I've tried the following pattern: r'I have some text here[\s\S\w\W\d\D]+>(\d{1,2})<', but it returns 39–the last occurence–see: https://regex101.com/r/cevLwj/1

What am I missing here? Thanks in advance!

Short answer, you are missing that its currently greedy with the `+`. If you want the quick fix use `+?`. But maybe someone can come up with a better pattern. — JvdV, Aug 09 '20 at 16:21
Why are you using `[\s\S\w\W\d\D]`? `[\s\S]` means the same. — Toto, Aug 09 '20 at 18:52

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 09 '20 at 16:30

0

You could use >(\d{1,2})< prepended by word characters \w and whitspaces \s.

Result: [\w\s]+>(\d{1,2})<

See working example: https://regex101.com/r/RUK9te/1

answered Aug 09 '20 at 16:30

Webber

4,672
4
29
38

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 09 '20 at 16:38

0

Try

I have some text here[^>]+>(\d\{1,2\})<

(Very likely will need to be tweaked to suit your input, but based on the information you have provided, this should be good enough.)

answered Aug 09 '20 at 16:38

Happy Green Kid Naps

1,611
11
18

1

Hmm, that didn't seem to work, however see Webber's answer. Thanks for your reply nonetheless! – Kevin Siemons Aug 09 '20 at 18:04

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 09 '20 at 18:56

0

This does the job:

^.*?>(\d\d?)<

Demo & explanation

answered Aug 09 '20 at 18:56

Toto

89,455
62
89
125

Hi Toto! Thanks for you reply. In this case, `I have some text here` is relevant to me. Is there a way to apply this/start searching **after** a specific substring? – Kevin Siemons Aug 09 '20 at 19:04
You reckon the below is usable? `(?<=I have some text here.*?>(\d\d?)<` It seems to give me the correct results, however generalisability is important to me. Cheers – Kevin Siemons Aug 09 '20 at 19:09
@KevinSiemons: Yes, of course, you can use `(?<=I have some text here.*?>)\d\d?(?=<)` but only if your regex flavor supports variable length lookbehind, if it doesn't, use: `I have some text here.*?>(\d\d?)<` and the digits you're searching is in group 1. – Toto Aug 10 '20 at 06:35
Read and understood. Much obliged! – Kevin Siemons Aug 11 '20 at 13:17

Regex – Return first group match

3 Answers3