Splitting a string

[Nico Grubert]

Dear Python users,

I'd like to split a string where 'and', 'or', 'and not' occurs.

Example string:
s = 'Smith, R. OR White OR Blue, T. AND Black AND Red AND NOT Green'

I need to split s in order to get this list:
['Smith, R.', 'White', 'Blue, T.', 'Back', 'Red', 'Green']

Any idea, how I can split a string where 'and', 'or', 'and not' occurs?


Thank you very much in advance,
Nico

 

[Dylan Moreland]

Take a look at:

http://docs.python.org/lib/node115.html#l2h-878

So I would try something like:

pat = re.compile(r" (?:AND|OR|AND NOT) ")
pat.split(string)

Compile the regular expression with re.IGNORECASE if you like.

 

[Fredrik Lundh]

So I would try something like:

pat = re.compile(r" (?:AND|OR|AND NOT) ")
pat.split(string)

footnote: this yields:

['Smith, R.', 'White', 'Blue, T.', 'Black', 'Red', 'NOT Green']

(the | operator picks the first (leftmost) alternative that results in an
overall match.)

</F>

 

[Dylan Moreland]

Woops! Thanks for the correction. I was assuming greediness for some
reason.

So I would try something like:

pat = re.compile(r" (?:AND|OR|AND NOT) ")
pat.split(string)

footnote: this yields:

['Smith, R.', 'White', 'Blue, T.', 'Black', 'Red', 'NOT Green']

(the | operator picks the first (leftmost) alternative that results in an
overall match.)

</F>

 

[Paul Rubin]

I'd like to split a string where 'and', 'or', 'and not' occurs.

Other people have suggested how to do this splitting. But don't you
really want a parser?

 

[Christoph Zwerschke]

I'd like to split a string where 'and', 'or', 'and not' occurs.
Example string:
s = 'Smith, R. OR White OR Blue, T. AND Black AND Red AND NOT Green'

Here is a solution without using the re module:
s.replace(' AND NOT ', ' OR ').replace(' AND ', ' OR ').split(' OR ')

-- Christoph