Hello NG,
I'm quite new to Python and I don't know if this is a FAQ (I can't find it) or an obvious question. I'm using the RE module in python, and I would like to be able to contruct something like the Window$ "Find Files Or Folders" engine. As the Window$ users know, you can filter the file names using the character "*", as:
myfilen* (Will find a file named myfilenames) *yf*nam* (Will find a file named myfilenames)
I have tried something like:
import re mystring = "*yf*nam*" mystring.replace("*","\w+") php = re.compile(mystring + "\w+")
But it does not work...
replace doesn't change the string in place (it can't, since strings are immutable in Python); rather it returns a new string. You could, for example, do something like
mystring = mystring.replace("*","\w+")Note 1: I'm not sure of the meaning of '*' in Windows file wildcards, but I think it would be more correct to translate it into '\w*' (i.e. zero or more instead of one or more) or even '.*' (any character, not only alphanumeric; will also match spaces etc. that might appear in filenames).
Note 2: Instead of translating to regular expressions, it would probably be easier to use the fnmatch and/or glob module. They use Unix shell-style wildcards, which I believe are very similar to Windows style wildcards, if not identical.
-- "Codito ergo sum" Roel Schroeven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
