[FIXED] Splitting String Using RE findall () in Python using ']]' as delimiter but keeping the delimiter

Issue

Simplest way to explain will be I have this code,

Str = 'Floor_Live_Patterened_SpanPairs_1: [[-3, 0, 0, 5.5], [-3, 5.5, 0, 9.5]]Floor_Live_Patterened_SpanPairs_2: [[-3, 0, 0, 5.5], [-3, 9.5, 0, 13.5]]Floor_Live_Patterened_SpanPairs_3: [[-3, 5.5, 0, 9.5], [-3, 9.5, 0, 13.5]]'
from re import findall

findall ('[^\]\]]+\]\]?', Str)

What I get is,

['Floor_Live_Patterened_SpanPairs_1: [[-3, 0, 0, 5.5]',
 ', [-3, 5.5, 0, 9.5]]',
 'Floor_Live_Patterened_SpanPairs_2: [[-3, 0, 0, 5.5]',
 ', [-3, 9.5, 0, 13.5]]',
 'Floor_Live_Patterened_SpanPairs_3: [[-3, 5.5, 0, 9.5]',
 ', [-3, 9.5, 0, 13.5]]']

I assume it's taking only single ']' instead of ']]' when splitting, I want result as below,

['Floor_Live_Patterened_SpanPairs_1: [[-3, 0, 0, 5.5], [-3, 5.5, 0, 9.5]]',
 'Floor_Live_Patterened_SpanPairs_2: [[-3, 0, 0, 5.5], [-3, 9.5, 0, 13.5]]',
 'Floor_Live_Patterened_SpanPairs_3: [[-3, 5.5, 0, 9.5], [-3, 9.5, 0, 13.5]]']

I have gone through the documentation but couldn't work out how to achieve this or what modification should be done in above using regex findall function, a similar technique was adopted in one of answers in In Python, how do I split a string and keep the separators?

Solution

Looks like you could just use a lazy dot .+? until ]] to get your desired matches.

.+?\]\]

See this demo at regex101 (explanation on the right side)

Be aware that [^\]\]]+ does not match substrings that are not ]]. Would be the same functioning if you removed one of the closing brackets. Read more about character classes here.

Answered By - bobble bubble