FYI, there is a “parse” library on PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/parse/ *Parse strings using a specification based on the Python format() syntax.* *parse() is the opposite of format()* (I haven’t used it myself, but I find the idea compelling, specially for people unfamiliar with regexes or C-style printf syntax). S. -- Stefane Fermigier - http://fermigier.com/ - http://twitter.com/sfermigier - http://linkedin.com/in/sfermigier Founder & CEO, Abilian - Enterprise Social Software - http://www.abilian.com/ Co-Founder & Co-Chairman, National Council for Free & Open Source Software (CNLL) - http://cnll.fr/ Co-Founder & Chairman, Association Professionnelle Européenne du Logiciel Libre (APELL) - https://www.apell.info/ Co-Founder & Spokesperson, European Cloud Industrial Alliance (EUCLIDIA) - https://www.euclidia.eu/ Founder, PyParis & PyData Paris - http://pyparis.org/ & http://pydata.fr/