Extract the last n characters of a string in a list

Question

I have a list of links in which some have page numbers and some don't. I'm trying to scrape the website to get the page number but it is in this format: '\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n«\nPrevious\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1\n\n2\n\n3\n\n\x85\n\n23'

Can someone help me just extract the last 2 characters of the list?

Here's the code I am using and the output I am getting.

for i in range(0, len(links)):
    url = links[i]
    response = requests.get(url, cookies)
    soup = BeautifulSoup(response.content)
    pr = [f.text for f in soup.find_all(class_='lia-paging-full-wrapper lia-paging-pager lia-paging-full-left-position lia-discussion-page-message-pager lia-forum-topic-page-gte-5-pager lia-component-message-pager')]
    ed = [i.split('\n\n\n\n\n\nNext\n»\n\n\n\n', 1)[0] for i in pr]
    print(ed)

The output I'm getting is this:

['\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n«\nPrevious\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1\n\n2\n\n3\n\n\x85\n\n23']
[]
['\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n«\nPrevious\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1\n\n2\n\n3']
['\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n«\nPrevious\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1\n\n2\n\n3']
[]
[]
[]
[]
['\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n«\nPrevious\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1\n\n2']
['\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n«\nPrevious\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1\n\n2\n\n3\n\n\x85\n\n16']
[]
[]
[]
['\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n«\nPrevious\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1\n\n2']
[]

How can I just get the last 2-3 characters as those represent the page numbers?

Answer 1

You could do ed[-2:] but I noticed you have 1 to 2 digit numbers, there are many ways, one way is just to look for the number at last of the string using regex:

import re
pattern = re.compile('\d+$')
for i in range(0, len(links)):
    url = links[i]
    response = requests.get(url, cookies)
    soup = BeautifulSoup(response.content)
    pr = [f.text for f in soup.find_all(class_='lia-paging-full-wrapper lia-paging-pager lia-paging-full-left-position lia-discussion-page-message-pager lia-forum-topic-page-gte-5-pager lia-component-message-pager')]
    ed = [i.split('\n\n\n\n\n\nNext\n»\n\n\n\n', 1)[0] for i in pr]
    print(ed)
    if ed:
        page_count = pattern.findall(ed[0])
        print(page_count[0])
    else:
        print('ed is empty!')

OUTPUT:

23
ed is empty!
3
3
ed is empty!
ed is empty!
ed is empty!
ed is empty!
2
16
ed is empty!
ed is empty!
ed is empty!
2
ed is empty!