difficult regular expression

[Mike Rovner]

> I need to create a regular expression that will grab "the things that
> Cats eat".

import re
pattern = re.compile( r'(\w+) eat (.*), and other foods\.' )
source = " ".join((
'Here is a list of foods and consumers: Dogs eat <chicken>, <rice>,',
'<steak>, and other foods. Cats eat <mice>, <rats>, <rabbits>, <marmots>,',
'and other foods. Chickens eat <grain>, <corn>, <wheat>, and other',
'foods.  Wow, that's a lot of eating!'))
found = pattern.findall( source )
food={}
for consumer, foodlist in found:
  food[consumer]=[s[2:-1] for s in foodlist.split(',')]
print food

>>> {'Cats': ['ice', 'rats', 'rabbits', 'marmots'], 'Chickens': ['rain',
'corn', 'wheat'], 'Dogs': ['hicken', 'rice', 'steak']}

Mike