Different number of matches from re.findall and re.split

Steve Holden steve at holdenweb.com
Tue Jan 12 05:33:02 EST 2010


Jeremy wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I am using re.split to separate some text into logical structures.
> The trouble is that re.split doesn't find everything while re.findall
> does; i.e.:
> 
>> found = re.findall('^ 1', line, re.MULTILINE)
>> len(found)
>    6439
>> tables = re.split('^ 1', line, re.MULTILINE)
>> len(tables)
>> 1
> 
> Can someone explain why these two commands are giving different
> results?  I thought I should have the same number of matches (or maybe
> different by 1, but not 6000!)
> 
re.MULTLINE is apprently 1, and you are providing it as the "maxsplit"
argument. Check the API in the documentation.

regards
 Steve
-- 
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