#Python & #Django educator & team trainer
I help folks sharpen their Python skills with https://PythonMorsels.com🐍🍪
Also: ostrovegan, sentientist, YIMBY, and I think economics is highly underrated. I don't post about any of those topics very often.
he/him
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Don't use regular expressions for very simple operations.
If the "in" operator or a string method will do what you need in an easier to understand fashion, just use those!
Seem like I'm contradicting tip 89? Check it again. I find those methods less understandable than regular expressions.
https://pym.dev/string-methods/
🧵 (2/2)
Python Tip #92 (of 365):
Don't overuse regular expressions
If a containment check of a common string method will do, don't use a regular expression.
Instead of this:
if re.search(r"^http://", string):
Do this:
if string.startswith("http://"):
Instead of this:
if re.search(r"#", string):
Do this:
if "#" in string:
And instead of this:
parts = re.findall(r"\S+", string)
Do this:
parts = string.split()
🧵 (1/2)
“There is one feature of self-documenting expressions that I really appreciate: you can put spaces around the equal sign to make the result a little bit more readable.”
Read more 👉 https://pym.dev/debugging-with-f-strings/
“Iterating over a dictionary object in Python will give you keys, no matter what Python feature you're using to do that iteration.”
Read more 👉 https://pym.dev/all-iteration-is-the-same/
Python programmers tend to underuse verbose mode when writing regular expressions.
If you're writing a regex that's more complex than \d+, consider using re.VERBOSE.
Your future self (and your teammates) will thank you.
🧵(4/4)
Regular expressions are a programming language without comments or whitespace.
That's why I recommend using re.VERBOSE for nearly every regex you write.
But... what if we need to match actual whitespace or a "#" character?
2 options:
1. Escape with a backslash
2. Use a character class: [ ] or [#]
🧵(3/4)
Verbose mode tells Python to ignore whitespace in the regex, so you can add whitespace for readability.
But it gets even better... with re.VERBOSE, you can add comments!
```
match = re.search(r"""
^ # beginning of the string
\d{5} # 5 digits
( - \d{4} )? # optionally, - followed by 4 digits
$ # end of the string
""", zip_code, flags=re.VERBOSE)
```
🧵(2/4)
Python Tip #91 (of 365):
Use re.VERBOSE to make your regular expressions more readable
Regexes are extremely dense: one character is often a whole expression, and they're usually written without whitespace or comments:
match = re.search(r"^\d{5}(-\d{4})?$", zip_code)
But they don't have to be so dense!
You can use the re.VERBOSE flag to space them out:
match = re.search(r"""
^
\d{5}
( - \d{4} )?
$
""", zip_code, flags=re.VERBOSE)
🧵(1/4)
RE: https://indieweb.social/@keithamus/116328410312008711
I did better than I expected on this... especially given how infrequently I find myself hand crafting CSS anymore.
I got 51/80.
We could make this a little bit more readable by splitting our code up over multiple lines (thanks to implicit line continuations), with each line starting with a Boolean operator
Read more 👉 https://trey.io/f98u5c
