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Python Regular Expressions in Python Introduction to Regular Expressions Email Groups

Posted by Holden Glass
Holden Glass
6,077 Points

I have no clue...

I have no idea what I am doing wrong here. It just says twitters isn't a regex search object. Any help is appreciated.

emails.py 
import re

string = '''Love, Kenneth, kenneth+challenge@teamtreehouse.com, 555-555-5555, @kennethlove
Chalkley, Andrew, andrew@teamtreehouse.co.uk, 555-555-5556, @chalkers
McFarland, Dave, dave.mcfarland@teamtreehouse.com, 555-555-5557, @davemcfarland
Kesten, Joy, joy@teamtreehouse.com, 555-555-5558, @joykesten'''

contacts = re.search(r'''
    (?P<email>[-\w\d+]+@[-\w\d+.]+),\s
    (?P<phone>\d{3}-\d{3}-\d{4})
''', string, re.X|re.M)

twitters = re.search(r'''
    ^(@[\w\d]+)$
''', string, re.X|re.M)

2 Answers

Stuart Wright
Stuart Wright
41,120 Points
Stuart Wright
Stuart Wright
41,120 Points

Just one small correction makes a big difference (as is often the case with regex):

twitters = re.search(r'''
    (@[\w\d]+)$
''', string, re.X|re.M)

Notice that I removed the ^ from the beginning of your line. The ^ symbol matches against the beginning of a line, but the Twitter handles are not at the beginning of the lines in your string.

james south
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
james south
Front End Web Development Techdegree Graduate 33,271 Points
james south
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
james south
Front End Web Development Techdegree Graduate 33,271 Points

you have the caret ^ in front, that tells it to exclude what follows. delete the ^ and it passes.

Stuart Wright
Stuart Wright
41,120 Points

In this context the caret means match start of line. Confusingly it can also mean exclude in a slightly different context, such as:

[^0-9]

That would mean match anything that isn't a digit, for example.

Holden Glass
Holden Glass
6,077 Points

Yes. I agree. The carrot symbol is a very confusing symbol.