Regular expression to match start of filename and filename extension

Question

What is the regular expression to match strings (in this case, file names) that start with \'Run\' and have a filename extension of \'.py\'?

The regular expression s

Answer 1

For a regular expression, you would use:

re.match(r'Run.*\.py$')

A quick explanation:

• . means match any character.
• * means match any repetition of the previous character (hence .* means any sequence of chars)
• \ is an escape to escape the explicit dot
• $ indicates "end of the string", so we don't match "Run_foo.py.txt"

However, for this task, you're probably better off using simple string methods. ie.

filename.startswith("Run") and filename.endswith(".py")

Note: if you want case insensitivity (ie. matching "run.PY" as well as "Run.py", use the re.I option to the regular expression, or convert to a specific case (eg filename.lower()) before using string methods.