Multiline regex help

[Steven Bethard]

Yatima wrote:
> Hey Folks,
> 
> I've got some info in a bunch of files that kind of looks like so:
> 
> Gibberish
> 53
> MoreGarbage
> 12
> RelevantInfo1
> 10/10/04
> NothingImportant
> ThisDoesNotMatter
> 44
> RelevantInfo2
> 22
> BlahBlah
> 343
> RelevantInfo3
> 23
> Hubris
> Crap
> 34
> 
> and so on...
> 
> Anyhow, these "fields" repeat several times in a given file (number of
> repetitions varies from file to file). The number on the line following the
> "RelevantInfo" lines is really what I'm after. Ideally, I would like to have
> something like so:
> 
> RelevantInfo1 = 10/10/04 # The variable name isn't actually important
> RelevantInfo3 = 23       # it's just there to illustrate what info I'm
>                          # trying to snag.
> 
> Score[RelevantInfo1][RelevantInfo3] = 22 # The value from RelevantInfo2

A possible solution, using the re module:

py> s = """\
... Gibberish
... 53
... MoreGarbage
... 12
... RelevantInfo1
... 10/10/04
... NothingImportant
... ThisDoesNotMatter
... 44
... RelevantInfo2
... 22
... BlahBlah
... 343
... RelevantInfo3
... 23
... Hubris
... Crap
... 34
... """
py> import re
py> m = re.compile(r"""^RelevantInfo1\n([^\n]*)
...                    .*
...                    ^RelevantInfo2\n([^\n]*)
...                    .*
...                    ^RelevantInfo3\n([^\n]*)""",
...                re.DOTALL | re.MULTILINE | re.VERBOSE)
py> score = {}
py> for info1, info2, info3 in m.findall(s):
...     score.setdefault(info1, {})[info3] = info2
...
py> score
{'10/10/04': {'23': '22'}}

Note that I use DOTALL to allow .* to cross line boundaries, MULTILINE 
to have ^ apply at the start of each line, and VERBOSE to allow me to 
write the re in a more readable form.

If I didn't get your dict update quite right, hopefully you can see how 
to fix it!

HTH,

STeVe