###################### 21.1 What is a regular expression? import re regexp = re.compile("hello") count = 0 file = open("textfile", 'r') for line in file.

readlines(): if regexp.search(line): count = count + 1 file.close() print count ###################### 21.4 Extracting matched text from strings import re regexp = re.compile( r"[-a-zA-Z]+," r" [-a-zA-Z]+" r"( [-a-zA-Z]+)?" r": (\d\d\d-)?\d\d\d-\d\d\d\d" ) file = open("textfile", 'r') for line in file.readlines(): if regexp.search(line): print "Yeah, I found a line with a name file.close() ##### import re regexp = re.compile(r"(?P<last>[-a-zA-Z]+)," # last name and comma r" (?P<first>[-a-zA-Z]+)" # first name r"( (?P<middle>([-a-zA-Z]+)))?" # optional middle name r": (?P<phone>(\d\d\d-)?\d\d\d-\d\d\d\d)" # colon and phone numb er ) file = open("textfile", 'r') for line in file.readlines(): result = regexp.search(line) if result == None: print "Oops, I don't think this is a record" else: lastname = result.group('last') firstname = result.group('first') middlename = result.group('middle') if middlename == None: middlename = "" phonenumber = result.group('phone') print 'Name: ' + firstname + ' ' + middlename + ' ' + lastname + ' Numb er: ' + phonenumber file.close() # # # # last name and comma first name optional middle name colon and phone number

and number. So what?"