How can I get part of regex match as a variable in python?

Question

In Perl it is possible to do something like this (I hope the syntax is right...):

$string =~ m/lalala(I want this part)lalala/;
$whatIWant = $1;

Answer 1

import re
astr = 'lalalabeeplalala'
match = re.search('lalala(.*)lalala', astr)
whatIWant = match.group(1) if match else None
print(whatIWant)

A small note: in Perl, when you write

$string =~ m/lalala(.*)lalala/;

the regexp can match anywhere in the string. The equivalent is accomplished with the re.search() function, not the re.match() function, which requires that the pattern match starting at the beginning of the string.