regex: matching 3 consecutive words
Question:
I’m trying to see if a string contains 3 consecutive words (divided by spaces and without numbers), but the regex I have constructed does not seem to work:
print re.match('([a-zA-Z]+b){3}', "123 test bla foo")
None
This should return true since the string contains the 3 words “test bla foo”.
What is the best way to achieve this?
Answers:
Do:
(?:[A-Za-z]+ ){2}[A-Za-z]+
-
(?:[A-Za-z]+ ){2}: the non-captured group (?:[A-Za-z]+ ) matches one or more alphabetic characters followed by space, {2} matches two such successive groups
-
[A-Za-z]+ matches one or more alphabetic character after the preceding two words, making the third word
If you want the words to be separated by any whitespace instead of just space:
(?:[A-Za-z]+s){2}[A-Za-z]+
I use this to select the first words of a string:
^(?:[^ ]+ ){3}
I use the whitespaces for define and delimite each words.
[^ ]+: minimum one char except whitespaces, followed by an whitespace
After you juste have to enter the number of words you want : {3}
It works very well.
this is a much better option.
It includes words with hyphens or apostrophe, like "don’t" or "mother-in-law"
([^s]+ ){2}[^s]+
I’m trying to see if a string contains 3 consecutive words (divided by spaces and without numbers), but the regex I have constructed does not seem to work:
print re.match('([a-zA-Z]+b){3}', "123 test bla foo")
None
This should return true since the string contains the 3 words “test bla foo”.
What is the best way to achieve this?
Do:
(?:[A-Za-z]+ ){2}[A-Za-z]+
-
(?:[A-Za-z]+ ){2}: the non-captured group(?:[A-Za-z]+ )matches one or more alphabetic characters followed by space,{2}matches two such successive groups -
[A-Za-z]+matches one or more alphabetic character after the preceding two words, making the third word
If you want the words to be separated by any whitespace instead of just space:
(?:[A-Za-z]+s){2}[A-Za-z]+
I use this to select the first words of a string:
^(?:[^ ]+ ){3}
I use the whitespaces for define and delimite each words.
[^ ]+: minimum one char except whitespaces, followed by an whitespace .
After you juste have to enter the number of words you want : {3}
It works very well.
this is a much better option.
It includes words with hyphens or apostrophe, like "don’t" or "mother-in-law"
([^s]+ ){2}[^s]+