python-re: How do I match an alpha character

Question

How can I match an alpha character with a regular expression. I want a character that is in \\w but is not in \\d. I want it unicode compatible tha

Answer 1

What about:

\p{L}

You can to use this document as reference: Unicode Regular Expressions

EDIT: Seems Python doesn't handle Unicode expressions. Take a look into this link: Handling Accented Characters with Python Regular Expressions -- [A-Z] just isn't good enough (no longer active, link to internet archive)

Another references:

• re.UNICODE
• python and regular expression with unicode
• Unicode Technical Standard #18: Unicode Regular Expressions

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For posterity, here are the examples on the blog:

import re
string = 'riché'
print string
riché

richre = re.compile('([A-z]+)')
match = richre.match(string)
print match.groups()
('rich',)

richre = re.compile('(\w+)',re.LOCALE)
match = richre.match(string)
print match.groups()
('rich',)

richre = re.compile('([é\w]+)')
match = richre.match(string)
print match.groups()
('rich\xe9',)

richre = re.compile('([\xe9\w]+)')
match = richre.match(string)
print match.groups()
('rich\xe9',)

richre = re.compile('([\xe9-\xf8\w]+)')
match = richre.match(string)
print match.groups()
('rich\xe9',)

string = 'richéñ'
match = richre.match(string)
print match.groups()
('rich\xe9\xf1',)

richre = re.compile('([\u00E9-\u00F8\w]+)')
print match.groups()
('rich\xe9\xf1',)

matched = match.group(1)
print matched
richéñ