Python regex match space only

Question

In python3, how do I match exactly whitespace character and not newline n or tab t?

I’ve seen the s+[^n] answer from Regex match space not n answer, but for the following example it does not work:

a='rasdnsa sd'
print(re.search(r's+[^ n]',a))

Result is <_sre.SRE_Match object; span=(4, 6), match='ns'>, which is the newline matched.

Asked By: Dimitry

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Source

Answer 1

If you want to match 1 or more whitespace chars except the newline and a tab use

r"[^Snt]+"

The [^S] matches any char that is not a non-whitespace = any char that is whitespace. However, since the character class is a negated one, when you add characters to it they are excluded from matching.

Python demo:

import re
a='rasdnsa sd'
print(re.findall(r'[^Snt]+',a))
# => [' ']

Some more considerations: s matches [ tnrfv] if ASCII flag is used. So, if you plan to only match ASCII, you might as well use [ rfv] to exclude the chars you want. If you need to work with Unicode strings, the solution above is a viable one.

Answered By: Wiktor Stribiżew

Answer 2

No need for special groups. Just create a regex with a space character. The space character does not have any special meaning, it just means “match a space”.

RE = re.compile(' +')

So for your case

a='rasdnsa sd'
print(re.search(' +', a))

would give

<_sre.SRE_Match object; span=(7, 8), match=' '>

Answered By: Resonance

Python regex match space only

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