Regex - Ignore punctuation at end of string

Question

I am using regex to match strings, here is my code:

r = re.compile(r"#?%s\b" % "apple", re.IGNORECASE|re.MULTILINE)
if r.search("I am eating an apple!"):
   print "success"

The "!" at the end of apple is causing it not to match... is there a way I can ignore punctuation such as ? ! at the end of the word?

Answer 1

Your sample code works for me: http://repl.it/J0t/5

The string formatting operator creates #?apple\\b the #? is pretty useless but will allow the expression to match all the following:

#apple
apple
grapple

apple\\b will also match the same.

If your task is to validate you have a whole word apple which is not part of another word, then I recommend something like \\bapple\\b which matches only #apple and apple from the samples above.