getting a set of numbers with regex in python

Another way to do it using one regular expression:

import re

string = "serial 7's 93-86-79-72-65 very slow, recall 3/3 "

regex = r"(?<=serial 7's) (\d+-?)+"

matches = re.finditer(regex, test_str, re.MULTILINE)

for match in matches:
    integers = match.group(0).strip().split("-")

print(integers) # ['93', '86', '79', '72', '65']

I would use re.findall here combined with split:

string = "serial 7's 93-86-79-72-65 very slow"
matches = re.findall(r"\bserial 7's (\S+)", string)
nums = matches[0].split('-')
print(nums)

This prints:

['93', '86', '79', '72', '65']

My two cents, you could use the below pattern with re.search:

\bserial 7's\s(\d+(?:-\d+)*)

import re
s = "serial 7's 93-86-79-72-65 very slow, recall 3/3 "
res = re.search(r"\bserial 7's\s(\d+(?:-\d+)*)", s)
if res:
    print(res.group(1).split('-')) # ['93', '86', '79', '72', '65']
else:
    print('No match')

I'd check if any match actually occurs first where the pattern must include numbers which, if there are multiple values, are delimited by an hyphen. Since you mentioned: "Note that there might be unknown number of integers we are trying to extract. I only want numbers with the specific pattern.".

• \b - Word boundary.
• serial 7's - Match "serial 7's" literally.
• \s+ - One or more whitespace characters.
• ( - Open capture group.
• \d+ - Match at least a single digit.
• (?:-\d+)* - Non-capture group for zero or more times an hyphen followed by at least a single digit.
• ) - Close capture group.

Alternatively one could use regex module instead and go with a non-fixed width positive lookbehind:

(?<=\bserial 7's\s+(?:\d+-)*)\d+

import regex
s = "serial 7's 93-86-79-72-65 very slow, recall 77 3/3 "
lst = regex.findall(r"(?<=\bserial 7's\s+(?:\d+-)*)\d+", s)
print(lst) # ['93', '86', '79', '72', '65']

• (?<= - Start of the positive lookbehind.
  • \b - A word boudnary.
  • serial 7's - Literally "serial 7's".
  • \s+ - One ore more whitespace characters.
  • (?: - Open non-capture group.
    • \d+- - Match at least a single digit followed by a hyphen.
    • )* - Close non-capture group and match it zero or more times.
  • ) - Close positive lookbehind.
• \d+ - Match at least a single digit.

If you can make use of the regex module, you could also use \G and \K

(?:\bserial 7's |\G(?!^))-?\K\d+

Explanation

• (?: Non capture group
  • \bserial 7's Match serial 7's and space
  • | Or
  • \G(?!^) The \G anchor matches at 2 positions: at the beginning of the string, or at the end of the previous match. We don't want the match to start at the beginning, so exclude that using a negative lookahead.
• )
• -?\K Match optional - and reset the match buffer (forget what is matched until now)
• \d+ Match 1+ digits

Regex demo | Python demo

Example code

import regex

pattern = r"(?:\bserial 7's |\G(?!^))-?\K\d+"
string = "serial 7's 93-86-79-72-65 very slow, recall 3/3 "

print(regex.findall(pattern, string))

Output

['93', '86', '79', '72', '65']

Can try:

string = "serial 7's 93-86-79-72-65 very slow"

#Simple regex to find numbers
reg = re.compile("\d+")

#We want to find numbers on as short string as possible.
#So, break the long the string into the part we need to search there..
res = reg.findall(s.split("serial 7's")[1])

print(res)
>> ['93', '86', '79', '72', '65']

Use PyPi regex and capture the numbers:

import regex  # pip install regex
string = "serial 7's 93-86-79-72-65 very slow, recall 3/3 "
pattern = r"serial\s+7's\s+(?:-?(\d+))+"
match = regex.search(pattern, string)
if match:
    print(match.captures(1))
# ['93', '86', '79', '72', '65']

See Python proof

Expression explanation

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  serial                   'serial'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  \s+                      whitespace (\n, \r, \t, \f, and " ") (1 or
                           more times (matching the most amount
                           possible))
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  7's                      '7\'s'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  \s+                      whitespace (\n, \r, \t, \f, and " ") (1 or
                           more times (matching the most amount
                           possible))
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  (?:                      group, but do not capture (1 or more times
                           (matching the most amount possible)):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    -?                       '-' (optional (matching the most amount
                             possible))
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    (                        group and capture to \1:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      \d+                      digits (0-9) (1 or more times
                               (matching the most amount possible))
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    )                        end of \1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  )+                       end of grouping