Python regular expressions return true/false

Question

Using Python regular expressions how can you get a True/False returned? All Python returns is:

<_sre.SRE_Match object at ...>         


        

Answer 1

One way to do this is just to test against the return value. Because you're getting <_sre.SRE_Match object at ...> it means that this will evaluate to true. When the regular expression isn't matched you'll the return value None, which evaluates to false.

import re

if re.search("c", "abcdef"):
    print "hi"

Produces hi as output.