Python parsing list of string

I have list of strings, I'm looking for lines like this:

Key: af12d9 Index: 0 Field 1: 123开发者_开发知识库4 Field 2: 1234 Field 3: -10

after finding lines like this, I want to store each one as a dictionary {'key' : af12d9, 'index' : 0, 'field 1' : .... }, then store this dictionary to a list, so I will have a list of dictionaries.

I was able to get it working like this:

listconfig = []
for line in list_of_strings:
    matched = findall("(Key:[\s]*[0-9A-Fa-f]+[\s]*)|(Index:[\s]*[0-9]+[\s]*)|(Field 1:[\s]*[0-9]+[\s]*)|(Field 2:[\s]*[0-9]+[\s]*)|(Field 3:[\s]*[-+]?[0-9]+[\s]*)", line)
    if matched:
        listconfig += [dict(map(lambda pair: (pair[0].strip().lower(), pair[1].strip().lower()),
                                map(lambda line: line[0].split(':'),
                                    [filter(lambda x: x, group) for group in matched])))]

I'm just wondering if there could a better way (short and efficient) to do this because I think the findall will do 5 searches per string. (correct? since it returns a list of 5 tuples.)

Thank you.

Solution:

OK, with help of brandizzi, I have found THE answer to this question.

Solution:

listconfig = []
for line in list_of_strings:
    matched = re.search(r"Key:[\s]*(?P<key>[0-9A-Fa-f]+)[\s]*" \ 
                        r"(Index:[\s]*(?P<index>[0-9]+)[\s]*)?" \ 
                        r"(Field 1:[\s]*(?P<field_1>[0-9]+)[\s]*)?" \ 
                        r"(Field 2:[\s]*(?P<field_2>[0-9 A-Za-z]+)[\s]*)?" \ 
                        r"(Field 3:[\s]*(?P<field_3>[-+]?[0-9]+)[\s]*)?", line) 
    if matched:
        print matched.groupdict()
        listconfig.append(matched.groupdict())

---

Firstly, your regex seems to not work properly. The Key field should have values which could include f, right? So its group should not be ([0-9A-Ea-e]+) but instead ([0-9A-Fa-f]+). Also, it is a good - actually, a wonderful - practice to prefix the regex string with r when dealing with regexes because it avoids problems with \ escaping characters. (If you do not understand why to do it, look at raw strings)

Now, my approach to the problem. First, I would create a regex without pipes:

>>> regex = r"(Key):[\s]*([0-9A-Fa-f]+)[\s]*" \
...     r"(Index):[\s]*([0-9]+)[\s]*" \
...     r"(Field 1):[\s]*([0-9]+)[\s]*" \
...     r"(Field 2):[\s]*([0-9 A-Za-z]+)[\s]*" \
...     r"(Field 3):[\s]*([-+]?[0-9]+)[\s]*"

With this change, the findall() will return only one tuple of found groups for an entire line. In this tuple, each key is followed by its value:

>>> re.findall(regex, line)
[('Key', 'af12d9', 'Index', '0', 'Field 1', '1234', 'Field 2', '1234 Ring ', 'Field 3', '-10')]

So I get the tuple...

>>> found = re.findall(regex, line)[0]
>>> found
('Key', 'af12d9', 'Index', '0', 'Field 1', '1234', 'Field 2', '1234 Ring ', 'Field 3', '-10')

...and using slices I get only the keys...

>>> found[::2]
('Key', 'Index', 'Field 1', 'Field 2', 'Field 3')

...and also only the values:

>>> found[1::2]
('af12d9', '0', '1234', '1234 Ring ', '-10')

Then I create a list of tuples containing the key and its corresponding value with zip() function:

>>> zip(found[::2], found[1::2])
[('Key', 'af12d9'), ('Index', '0'), ('Field 1', '1234'), ('Field 2', '1234 Ring '), ('Field 3', '-10')]

The gran finale is to pass the list of tuples to the dict() constructor:

>>> dict(zip(found[::2], found[1::2]))
{'Field 3': '-10', 'Index': '0', 'Field 1': '1234', 'Key': 'af12d9', 'Field 2': '1234 Ring '}

I find this solution the best, but it is indeed a subjective question in some sense. HTH anyway :)

---

OK, with help of brandizzi, I have found THE answer to this question.

Solution:

listconfig = []
for line in list_of_strings:
    matched = re.search(r"Key:[\s]*(?P<key>[0-9A-Fa-f]+)[\s]*" \ 
                        r"(Index:[\s]*(?P<index>[0-9]+)[\s]*)?" \ 
                        r"(Field 1:[\s]*(?P<field_1>[0-9]+)[\s]*)?" \ 
                        r"(Field 2:[\s]*(?P<field_2>[0-9 A-Za-z]+)[\s]*)?" \ 
                        r"(Field 3:[\s]*(?P<field_3>[-+]?[0-9]+)[\s]*)?", line) 
    if matched:
        print matched.groupdict()
        listconfig.append(matched.groupdict())

---

import re

str_list = "Key: af12d9 Index: 0 Field 1: 1234 Field 2: 1234 Ring Field 3: -10"
results = {}
for match in re.findall("(.*?):\ (.*?)\ ", str_list+' '):
    results[match[0]] = match[1]

---

The pattern in your example is probably not matching your example data due to the "Ring". Here is some code which might help:

import re
# the keys to look for
keys = ['Key','Index','Field 1','Field 2','Field 3']
# a pattern for those keys in exact order
pattern = ''.join(["(%s):(.*)" % key for key in keys])
# sample data
data = "Key: af12d9 Index: 0 Field 1: 1234 Field 2: 1234 Ring Field 3: -10"
# look for the pattern
hit = re.match(pattern,data)
if hit:
    # get the matched elements
    groups = hit.groups()
    # group them in pairs and create a dict
    d = dict(zip(groups[::2], groups[1::2]))
    # print result
    print d

---

You could use a parser library. I know Lepl, so will use that, but because it is implemented in Python it will not be so efficient. However, the solution is fairly short and, I hope, very easy to understand:

def parser():
  key = (Drop("Key:") & Regexp("[0-9a-fA-F]+")) > 'key'
  index = (Drop("Index:") & Integer()) > 'index'
  def Field(n):
      return (Drop("Field" + str(n)) & Integer()) > 'field'+str(n)
  with DroppedSpaces():
      line = (key & index & Field(1) & Field(2) & Field(3)) >> make_dict
      return line[:]
p = parser()
print(p.parse_file(...))

It should also be relatively simple to handle a variable number of fields.

Note that the above is not tested (I need to get to work), but should be about right. In particular, it should return a list of dictionaries, as required.

---

Your solution would perform better if you did this[*]:

import re

from itertools import imap

regex = re.compile(flags=re.VERBOSE, pattern=r"""
    Key:\s*(?P<key>[0-9A-Fa-f]+)\s*
    Index:\s*(?P<index>[0-9]+)\s*
    Field\s+1:\s*(?P<field_1>[0-9]+)\s*
    Field\s+2:\s*(?P<field_2>[0-9A-Za-z]+)\s*
    Field\s+3:\s*(?P<field_3>[-+]?[0-9]+)\s*
""")

list_of_strings = [
    'Key: af12d9 Index: 0 Field 1: 1234 Field 2: 1234 Field 3: -10',
    'hey joe!',
    ''
]

listconfig = [
    match.groupdict() for match in imap(regex.search, list_of_strings) if match
]

Also, it'd be more succinct. Also, I fixed your broken regex pattern.

BTW, the result of the above would be:

[{'index': '0', 'field_2': '1234', 'field_3': '-10', 'key': 'af12d9', 'field_1': '1234'}]

[*] Actually - no, it wouldn't. I timeit'ed both and neither is faster than the other. Still, I like mine better.