Python Find Words
From Regex Regular Expression Encyclopedia
You can use this recipe for finding single words in a block of text. The expression will find only complete words surrounded by spaces.
[edit] code
import re r = re.compile( r'\bword\b', re.M ) if r.search( open( 'sample.txt' ).read( ) ) : print "I finally found what I'm looking for.", else: print "\"word\"s not here, man.",
[edit] How It Works
A special character class in Perl, \b, allows you to easily search for whole words. This is an advantage because without doing a whole bunch of extra work you can make sure that a search for word, for example, doesn't yield unexpected matches such as sword.
You can easily break the regular expression shown here into the following:
| Regular Expression | Description |
|---|---|
| \b | a word boundary (a space or beginning of a line, or punctuation) . . . |
| w | a w followed by . . . |
| o | an o, followed by . . . |
| r | an r, then . . . |
| d | a d, and finally . . . |
| \b | a word boundary at the end of the word . . . |
