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
data = "some input data"
m = re.search("some (input) data", data)
if m: # "if match was successful" / "if matched"
  print m.group(1)

Check the docs for more.