Extracting a Specific Number from a String in Python

Question

I have a string, which contains a specific number that I would like extracted into a single number.

string = Result: ResultSet({'(u'examplemeasure', None)': [{u'value': 15, u'time': u'2018-03-20T22:50:33.803894733Z'}]})

I would like the number 15 by itself as a result.

15 (<-- just like this)

My code is as follows.

import re
m = re.search('(\d+)', 'Result: ResultSet({'(u'examplemeasure', None)': [{u'value': 15, u'time': u'2018-03-20T22:50:33.803894733Z'}]})', re.IGNORECASE)
print (m.group(1))

However, the abundance of apostrophe's give a syntax error.

  File "filename.py", line 3
print (m.group(1))
    ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Is there a way to disregard the abundance of apostrophe's and get the number 15 by itself?

Thanks, whyiamafool

Answer 1

The single quotation marks in your ResultSet needs to be escaped. Or wrap the ResultSet with double quotation marks.

Answer 2

I figured out how to extract a specific number out of a string with multiple numbers within a few minutes of OP.

You can remove the initial and last apostrophe marks from the string, as shown.

m = re.search('(\d+)', Result: ResultSet({'(u'examplemeasure', None)': [{u'value': 15, u'time': u'2018-03-20T22:50:33.803894733Z'}]}), re.IGNORECASE)

Replacing those apostrophe marks with quotation marks ("") around the string will solve the problem.

m = re.search('(\d+)', "Result: ResultSet({'(u'examplemeasure', None)': [{u'value': 15, u'time': u'2018-03-20T22:50:33.803894733Z'}]})", re.IGNORECASE)

The printed result of this program is...

15

(full code below)

import re
m = re.search('(\d+)', "Result: ResultSet({'(u'examplemeasure', None)': [{u'value': 15, u'time': u'2018-03-20T22:50:33.803894733Z'}]})", re.IGNORECASE)
print (m.group(1))

15