Capturing the positions of "start" and "end" markers in a multi-line string

Question

Is there any better (and shorter) way to get index of a regex match in Python?

import re
sstring = """
this is dummy text
which starts with nothing
and ends with something
"""
starts = re.finditer('start[s]?', sstring)
ends = re.finditer('end[s]?', sstring)
for m in starts:
 print (m.start())
for m in ends:
 print (m.end())

For me, there is only one starts and endsmatch in the string.

Answer 1

If you are certain that there is exactly one match, then you don't need to iterate. You could write:

start, end = re.search('start.*ends?', sstring, re.DOTALL).span()

To note:

• Take advantage of re.DOTALL so that the regex can span multiple lines.
• Use match.span() and destructuring assignment to get both the start and end in one statement.
• The [s]? after start is, from a mechanical viewpoint, useless. You might want to keep it just for symmetry.

The spacing in print (something) is kind of weird; print(something) would be more conventional.

Answer 2

I am no python expert but I think if the pattern contains only one match group we can use re.search(pattern, string).start() method instead of iter object.

print(re.search('start[s]?', sstring).start())
print(re.search('end[s]?', sstring).end())

• Mast: We expect an answer to contain an actual review. This is not a review. Please add an actual review to your answer or risk this answer getting removed.
• Rahul Patel: I am new to codereview. I will look at how to for this group.