Regex matches only a few elements from a list

Question

Here's a python-code-snippet:

import re

VARS='Variables: "OUTPUTFOLDER=installers","SETUP_ORDER=Product 4,Product 4  Library","SUB_CONTENTS=Product 4 Library","SUB_CONTENT_SIZES=9364256","SUB_CONTENT_GROUPS=Product 4 Library","SUB_CONTENT_DESCRIPTIONS=","SUB_CONTENT_GROUP_DESCRIPTIONS=","SUB_DISCS=Product 4,Product Disc",SUB_FILENAMES='
comp = re.findall(r'\w+=".*?"', VARS)

for var in comp:
    print var

This is the output currently:

SUB_CONTENT_DESCRIPTIONS="," 
SUB_CONTENT_GROUP_DESCRIPTIONS=","

However I'd like the output to extract all elements so it looks like this:

"OUTPUTFOLDER=installers"
"SETUP_ORDER=Product 4, Product 4 Library"
"SUB_CONTENTS=Product 4"
"SUB_CONTENT_SIZES=9364256"
...

What is wrong with my regex-pattern?

Answer 1

Use this regex.

comp = re.findall(r'"\w+=.*?"', VARS)

Results:

>>> 
"OUTPUTFOLDER=installers"
"SETUP_ORDER=Product 4,Product 4  Library"
"SUB_CONTENTS=Product 4 Library"
"SUB_CONTENT_SIZES=9364256"
"SUB_CONTENT_GROUPS=Product 4 Library"
"SUB_CONTENT_DESCRIPTIONS="
"SUB_CONTENT_GROUP_DESCRIPTIONS="
"SUB_DISCS=Product 4,Product Disc"

---

In my opinion, you could do this in a more clever way, and store your "vars" in a dictionary.

d = dict(var.strip('"').split('=') for var in re.findall(r'"\w+=.*?"', VARS))

To see the dictionary:

for k, v in d.items():
    print k, '=', (v if v else '<NONE>')

Results:

>>> 
SETUP_ORDER = Product 4,Product 4  Library
SUB_CONTENT_DESCRIPTIONS = <NONE>
SUB_DISCS = Product 4,Product Disc
SUB_CONTENT_GROUPS = Product 4 Library
SUB_CONTENT_SIZES = 9364256
SUB_CONTENT_GROUP_DESCRIPTIONS = <NONE>
OUTPUTFOLDER = installers
SUB_CONTENTS = Product 4 Library

Answer 2

Use this regex:

r'"\w+?=.*?"'

The difference between my and your regexes, see for yourself:

r'"\w+?=.*?"' # mine
r'\w+=".*?"' # your's

Just one " .

Output:

>>> regex = re.compile(r'"\w+?=.*?"')
>>> regex.findall(string)
[u'"OUTPUTFOLDER=installers"', u'"SETUP_ORDER=Product 4,Product 4 Library"',  
 u'"SUB_CONTENTS=Product 4 Library"', u'"SUB_CONTENT_SIZES=9364256"',
 u'"SUB_CONTENT_GROUPS=Product 4 Library"', u'"SUB_DISCS=Product 4,Product Disc"']

Answer 3

You could try this:

 comp = re.findall(r'"(.*?)"', VARS)
 print [x for x in comp]

Roughly you are getting whatever comes within the double quotes in a non greedy manner.