Regex for Phone Numbers in Automate the boring stuff with python

Question

what does this code mean? (\d{3}|\(\d{3}\)) ? I understand that (\d{3}) means that the digit is repeated 3 times, but I don't understand the rest of it. Can someone please explain

Answer 1

"(\d{3}|\(\d{3}\))"

What an eye- capturing regex hm?

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Let's do this one by one.

\d{3} means "match any number that occurs three times."

\( or \) means "match the literal parenthesis, but this has no special meaning at all."

| means "match the previous statement OR the next statement."

( with ) means "match the regex inside me and capture/remember them."

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TL;DR

Match a 3-digit number or a 3-digit number inside parentheses and capture/remeber the match.