Python | re.search() vs re.match()
The re.search() and re.match() both are functions of re module in python. These functions are very efficient and fast for searching in strings. The function searches for some substring in a string and returns a match object if found, else it returns none.
There is a difference between the use of both functions. Both return the first match of a substring found in the string, but re.match() searches only from the beginning of the string and return match object if found. But if a match of substring is found somewhere in the middle of the string, it returns none.
While re.search() searches for the whole string even if the string contains multi-lines and tries to find a match of the substring in all the lines of string.
Example :
- Python3
# import re moduleimport reSubstring ='string'String1 ='''We are learning regex with geeksforgeeks regex is very useful for string matching. It is fast too.'''String2 ='''string We are learning regex with geeksforgeeks regex is very useful for string matching. It is fast too.'''# Use of re.search() Methodprint(re.search(Substring, String1, re.IGNORECASE))# Use of re.match() Methodprint(re.match(Substring, String1, re.IGNORECASE))# Use of re.search() Methodprint(re.search(Substring, String2, re.IGNORECASE))# Use of re.match() Methodprint(re.match(Substring, String2, re.IGNORECASE)) |
Output :
<re.Match object; span=(75, 81), match='string'> None <re.Match object; span=(0, 6), match='string'> <re.Match object; span=(0, 6), match='string'>
Conclusion :
- re.search() is returning match object and implies that first match found at index 69.
- re.match() is returning none because match exists in the second line of the string and re.match() only works if the match is found at the beginning of the string.
- re.IGNORECASE is used to ignore the case sensitivity in the strings.
- Both re.search() and re.match() returns only the first occurrence of a substring in the string and ignore others.
Last Updated on November 13, 2021 by admin