🔒 Confused

[bright elbow]

@bleak hemlock

Python help channel opened

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[bleak hemlock]

Any idea on what went wrong here?

[stable cobalt]

\u, which you have in that string, is a special escape character, similar to \n. It expects a number after the u to indicate a Unicode character of a specific code.

If you want \ literally in the string, you need to either escape them by changing them all to \\, or by making the string they're in a raw string by prefixing the string with an r: r'<\u>'.

[bleak hemlock]

i am still a bit confused

i get what the error is

but wdym by prefixing the string

[stable cobalt]

Look at the example I gave at the end. Note the r before the opening ' quote.

[bleak hemlock]

but wouldn't that register in python as regex

[stable cobalt]

r'This is a raw string'

[bleak hemlock]

oh wait nvm

that has no effect

[stable cobalt]

No. r means raw. It's just sometimes used when creating regexes because regexes can contain backslashes.

It will have an effect.

Making it a raw string will fix the current error.

[bleak hemlock]

oh

i always use r

before inputting a regex pattern into python

so that's why my mind was confused when you suggested that

[stable cobalt]

Ah. They're unrelated ideas that both just happen to start with R.

[chrome wagon]

Just to clarify a bit: the r isn't for "regexp", it's for "raw". We use raw strings for both regexps and Windows paths-containing-backslashes to avoid Python interpreting the backslashes itself, instead passing them through into the string unchanged for use by whatever wants the (the regexp or windows path).

[bleak hemlock]

Thanks, that does help a lot.

[plucky roost]

the pattern should probably be r"</?[A-Za-z]+>" as the optional / should be the first character within the angled brackets and ? is not a valid character within a tag name

within the square brackets in a regex most characters are without special meaning (there are some exceptions though)

[bleak hemlock]

let me check what mine turned out to be

[bleak hemlock]

but it worked

so that's why i kept it

[plucky roost]

it may seem like it works as it should at first glance, but your version will also accept tags that aren't valid tags in this string "<d/iv> <di?v>" and so on

i don't think that this is something you want, right?

[bleak hemlock]

oh ok fair enough

i will fix it then

Thanks

[plucky roost]

you're welcome
you understand why this is and how this problem came about?

[bleak hemlock]

yes

thanks

[plucky roost]

it's from mistakes you learn the most

[bright elbow]

Python help channel closed for inactivity

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