How do I get to *all* of the groups of an re search?

[Kyler Laird]

Andrew Dalke <adalke at mindspring.com> writes:

>>>Sure.  For example, finding the last component of a path expression, in
>>>order to isolate the file name, is a common application.

>> That's readily done using simple REs without depending on this
>> behavior.

>The simple re is

> >>> import re
> >>> pat = re.compile(r"(/([^/]+)*)+")
> >>> pat.match("/home/dalke/tmp/whatever.txt").group(2)
>'whatever.txt'

What's the problem with something simpler like this?
	/([^/]+)$

>If I understand you rightly, you would want to use the same
>re to get all the filename matches, eg, so that 'allmatches(2)'\
>(or somesuch) would return ['home', 'dalke', 'tmp', 'whatever.txt']

That'd be great, yes.

>Again, I see your point in that the interface to regexp results
>isn't as powerful as it could be.  I still think your proposed
>inteface isn't itself powerful enough.

It would satisfy my immediate need and make the statement "the
contents of a group can be retrieved after a match has been
performed" true.

>Now in your case, you want to advocate Python for people who
>haven't learned other languages.  In other words, for people
>who are not programmers.  This is a new criteria, since you
>hadn't mentioned it before.

I want the documentation, each piece of it, to stand on its
own.  That does not change simply because the reason I am most
concerned about it is primarily for the benefit of new users.

>With that additional information, I'll suggest that regular
>expressions are not for the faint of heart nor for just about
>every new programmer.

O.k., in that case it's fine to have misleading information in
the documentation.  It'll be a "rite of passage" for Python
programmers to stumble over such things.  'should keep out the
riff-raff.

--kyler