python Regex to find values between 2 strings

Question

I have a string: a = '*1357*0123456789012345678901234567890123456789*2468*'

I want to find a value between 1357 and 2468 which is 0123456789012345678901234567890123456789 .

I want to use regex or easier method to extract the value.

I tried re.findall(r'1357\\.(.*?)2468', a) , but I don't know where I'm doing wrong.

Answer 1

You have a couple of problems here:

1. You're escaping the . after 1357 , which means a literal . , which isn't what you meant to have
2. You aren't treating the * characters (which do need to be escaped, of course).

To make a long story short:

re.findall(r'1357\*(.*?)\*2468', a)

Answer 2

If you want a slightly more general or flexible method, you can use this:

re.findall(r'\*\d+\*(\d+)\*\d+\*',a)

Which gives you the same output:

['0123456789012345678901234567890123456789']

But the advantage is that it gives you the value between any set of numeric values that are surrounded by the * . For instance, this would work for your string, but also for the string a = *0101*0123456789012345678901234567890123456789*0* , etc...