Replace re.DOTALL with equivalent

Question

Is there any expression that can replace the flag re.DOTALL in the following line of python code:

r = re.compile(r'<p>.*<p>.', re.IGNORECASE | re.MULTILINE | re.DOTALL)

like add any expression to this regular expression: r'<p>.*<p>.' to be something like :

r = re.compile(r'<p>something.*<p>.', re.IGNORECASE | re.MULTILINE )

but need to keep the same behavior, which is matching multiline string (paragraph)

Thanks

Note you seem to be trying to extract content from HTML using regular expressions, in which case [have you considered an HTML parser?](https://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/3001761) — jonrsharpe, Feb 12 '21 at 08:56

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 12 '21 at 08:56

0

I think you have it backwards, and the following two should be equivalent:

r = re.compile(r'<p>[\s\S]*<p>.', re.IGNORECASE | re.MULTILINE)

r = re.compile(r'<p>.*<p>.', re.IGNORECASE | re.MULTILINE | re.DOTALL)

That is, matching .* in DOTALL mode should behave the same as matching [\s\S]* with DOTALL mode disabled.

answered Feb 12 '21 at 08:56

Tim Biegeleisen

I am providing the regular expression from a json input file to the script like this: "regex":"
[\s\S]*
" but still showing an error message "Error decoding json in file "input_file.json" "
– Elhabib Feb 12 '21 at 09:07
JSON? Don't use regex on JSON, use a parser instead. – Tim Biegeleisen Feb 12 '21 at 09:08

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 12 '21 at 08:59

0

You can use the inline flag (?s).

re.compile(regex, re.DOTALL)

is equivalent to

re.compile('(?s)' + regex)

answered Feb 12 '21 at 08:59

timgeb

2 Answers2