Re: New to using re. Search for a number before a string.

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From	Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject	Re: New to using re. Search for a number before a string.
Date	Sun, 03 Nov 2013 00:27:43 +0000
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On 03/11/2013 00:19, Captain Dunsel wrote:
> On Friday, November 1, 2013 5:33:43 PM UTC-4, Captain Dunsel wrote:
>> I have a text file that has lines with numbers occasionally appearing right before a person's name.  For example:
>>
>>
>>
>> COLLEGE:ENROLLMENT:COMPLETED EVALUATIONS:624309FUDD, ELMER
>>
>>
>>
>> where I want to search for the name "ELMER FUDD" and extract the number right in front of it "608309" when such a number appears but the length of the number is variable and using ?<= in a regular expression will only search for a fixed length.
>>
>>
>>
>> Any ideas appreciated!
>
> Thanks for your help, everyone!
>

My invoice, like the proverbial cheque, is in the post :)

Slight aside, in order to avoid the unwanted newlines above could you 
please read and action this, thanks 
https://wiki.python.org/moin/GoogleGroupsPython

-- 
Python is the second best programming language in the world.
But the best has yet to be invented.  Christian Tismer

Mark Lawrence

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Thread

New to using re.   Search for a number before a string. Captain Dunsel <jonathan.nyquist@gmail.com> - 2013-11-01 14:33 -0700
  Re: New to using re.   Search for a number before a string. MRAB <python@mrabarnett.plus.com> - 2013-11-01 21:40 +0000
  Re: New to using re.   Search for a number before a string. Jussi Piitulainen <jpiitula@ling.helsinki.fi> - 2013-11-02 09:06 +0200
  Re: New to using re.   Search for a number before a string. Justin Barber <jbarber@iliff.edu> - 2013-11-02 06:03 -0700
  Re: New to using re.   Search for a number before a string. Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-11-02 13:31 +0000
  Re: New to using re.   Search for a number before a string. Captain Dunsel <jonathan.nyquist@gmail.com> - 2013-11-02 17:19 -0700
    Re: New to using re.   Search for a number before a string. Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-11-03 00:27 +0000

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