Get all possible matches for regex (in python)?

Question

I have a regex that can match a string in multiple overlapping possible ways. However, it seems to only capture one possible match in the string, how can I get all possible

Answer 1

It's not something regex engines tend to be able to do. I don't know if Python can. Perl can using the following:

local our @matches;
"foo-foobar-foobaz" =~ /
    ^(.*)-(.*)\z
    (?{ push @matches, [ $1, $2 ] })
    (*FAIL)
/xs;

This specific problem can probably be solved using the regex engine in many languages using the following technique:

my @matches;
while ("foo-foobar-foobaz" =~ /(?=-(.*)\z)/gsp) {
   push @matches, [ ${^PREMATCH}, $1 ];
}

(${^PREMATCH} refers to what comes before where the regex matched, and $1 refers to what the first () matched.)

But you can easily solve this specific problem outside the regex engine:

my @parts = split(/-/, "foo-foobar-foobaz");
my @matches;
for (1..$#parts) {
   push @matches, [
      join('-', @parts[0..$_-1]),
      join('-', @parts[$_..$#parts]),
   ];
}

Sorry for using Perl syntax, but should be able to get the idea. Translations to Python welcome.