[Tutor] Fwd: findall() returns tuples or string?

[eryksun]

On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 12:26 AM, suhas bhairav <suhasbhairav at hotmail.com> wrote:
> As far as my understanding goes, re.findall without using "()" inside your
> pattern will return you a list of strings when you search something similar
> to the one shown below:
>
> a="Bangalore, India"
> re.findall("[\w][\n]*",a)

With respect to using groups with findall, there are 3 cases discussed
in the docs:

http://docs.python.org/2/library/re#re.findall


    >>> a = "Bangalore, India\n\n\n"

    >>> re.findall(r'\w+\s*', a) # no groups
    ['Bangalore', 'India\n\n\n']

    >>> re.findall(r'(\w+)\s*', a)  # 1 group
    ['Bangalore', 'India']

    >>> re.findall(r'(\w+)(\s*)', a)  # 2+ groups
    [('Bangalore', ''), ('India', '\n\n\n')]


CPython 2.7.3, _sre.c, pattern_findall (see 2089-2116):

http://hg.python.org/cpython/file/70274d53c1dd/Modules/_sre.c#l2088