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Python Regular Expressions in Python Introduction to Regular Expressions Groups

Sophia Zeng
Sophia Zeng
2,169 Points
Posted by Sophia Zeng
Sophia Zeng
2,169 Points

AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'groupdict'

Hi,

I think I followed exactly everything in Kenneth's video, but when I run it, I got an attribute error like this: "AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'groupdict'"... I don't know what's wrong with my code, can someone help me please?!

import re

names_file = open('names.txt', encoding="utf8")
data = names_file.read()
names_file.close()

line = re.findall(r'''
    ^(?P<name>[-\w ]*, \s[-\w ]+)\t  # Last and first names
    (?P<email>[-\wd.+]+@[-\w\d.]+)\t  # Email
    (?P<phone>\(?\d{3}\)?-?\s?\d{3}-\d{4})?\t  # Phone
    (?P<job>[\w\s]+, \s[\w\s.]+)\t?  # Job and company
    (?P<twitter>@[\w\d]+)?$  # Twitter
''', data, re.X | re.M)
print(line)
print(line.groupdict())

[MOD: added ```python markdown formatting -cf]

1 Answer

Chris Freeman
MOD
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,457 Points
Chris Freeman
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,457 Points

The re.findall() method is different from using re.match(). findall() returns a list, where match() returns a match object. A match object has the methods: 'end', 'endpos', 'expand', 'group', 'groupdict', 'groups', 'lastgroup', 'lastindex', 'pos', 're', 'regs', 'span', 'start', 'string'

From help(re.findall)

findall(pattern, string, flags=0)
    Return a list of all non-overlapping matches in the string.

    If one or more capturing groups are present in the pattern, return
    a list of groups; this will be a list of tuples if the pattern
    has more than one group.

    Empty matches are included in the result.
Sophia Zeng
Sophia Zeng
2,169 Points
Sophia Zeng
Sophia Zeng
2,169 Points

I get it!! Just realised I wasn't using re.search!! Thanks a lot Chris Freeman !!