Regular exp matching delimited string excepting trailing delimiters?

[Alex Martelli]

Jeff Kowalczyk wrote:

> Can anyone suggest a reg exp (using re) that will match the entirety of a
> delimited string of values, omitting zero or more delimiters at the end of
> the string? For example:
> 
> from 'A,B,C,123,D,E,,,,,,' with delimiter ',' match 'A,B,C,123,D,E'
> 
> I have (,*\Z) to match the trailing delimiters for removal with string
> slicing, but I'd prefer to directly match the text to keep, or match both
> keep and discard as groups. What would be the syntax for an omission like
> that? Thanks.

Perhaps:
    ([^,]+,?)*
but that won't work if you can have e.g. A,B,,,,D,E,Z,,, ("empty fields").


Alex