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Python

Posted by J Donahue
J Donahue
30,790 Points

Create a variable names that is an re.match() against string. The pattern should provide two groups, one for a last name

import re

string = 'Perotto, Pier Giorgio'

names = re.match(r'''
    ^([-\w ]+,\s)
    ([-\w ]+)$
''', string, re.X|re.M)

I keep getting the message: " Last name was "Perotto, ", first name was "Pier Giorgio"." and I can't figure out why. I've tried adding the ?P<last> and ?P<first> to the beginning of each group, but that doesn't seem to make a difference. I've tried it with or without the string delimiters (^$). It makes no difference. I've tried switching the order of the groups, I still get the same results. I'm not sure what's going on here.

3 Answers

Megan Amendola
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Megan Amendola
Treehouse Teacher
Megan Amendola
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Megan Amendola
Treehouse Teacher

You still need to account for the comma and space in your pattern, but they shouldn't be a part of your last name group. My bad on clarity there :) You just add them outside the group.

You also need the names of your groups to create the groups() attribute it is looking for. It's shown at about 7:45 in the video. lastname for the first and firstname for the second will work.

Megan Amendola
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STAFF
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Megan Amendola
Treehouse Teacher
Megan Amendola
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Megan Amendola
Treehouse Teacher

Hi, Zerksies! I believe it's because you're grabbing the comma (,) as a part of the last name. This isn't a part of the person's last name, just a grammatical requirement to have a comma when writing out someone's name in this way.

J Donahue
J Donahue
30,790 Points
J Donahue
J Donahue
30,790 Points

When I remove the comma I get a different error.

import re

string = 'Perotto, Pier Giorgio'

names = re.match(r'''
    ^([-\w ]+\s)
    ([-\w ]+)$
''', string, re.X|re.M)

Bummer: Hmm, no .groups() attribute. Did you do a match?