Mastering Python Regular Expressions -- Table of Contents -- Mastering Python Regular Expressions -- Credits -- About the Authors -- About the Reviewers -- www.PacktPub.com -- Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more -- Why Subscribe? -- Free Access for Packt account holders -- Preface -- What this book covers -- What you need for this book -- Who this book is for -- Conventions -- Reader feedback -- Customer support -- Downloading the example code -- Errata -- Piracy -- Questions -- 1. Introducing Regular Expressions -- History, relevance, and purpose -- The regular expression syntax -- Literals -- Character classes -- Predefined character classes -- Alternation -- Quantifiers -- Greedy and reluctant quantifiers -- Boundary Matchers -- Summary -- 2. Regular Expressions with Python -- A brief introduction -- Backslash in string literals -- String Python 2.x -- Building blocks for Python regex -- RegexObject -- Searching -- match(string[, pos[, endpos]]) -- search(string[, pos[, endpos]]) -- findall(string[, pos[, endpos]]) -- finditer(string[, pos[, endpos]]) -- Modifying a string -- split(string, maxsplit=0) -- sub(repl, string, count=0) -- subn(repl, string, count=0) -- MatchObject -- group([group1, …]) -- groups([default]) -- groupdict([default]) -- start([group]) -- end([group]) -- span([group]) -- expand(template) -- Module operations -- escape() -- purge() -- Compilation flags -- re.IGNORECASE or re.I -- re.MULTILINE or re.M -- re.DOTALL or re.S -- re.LOCALE or re.L -- re.UNICODE or re.U -- re.VERBOSE or re.X -- re.DEBUG -- Python and regex special considerations -- Differences between Python and other flavors -- Unicode -- What's new in Python 3 -- Summary -- 3. Grouping -- Introduction -- Backreferences -- Named groups -- Non-capturing groups -- Atomic groups -- Special cases with groups -- Flags per group -- yes-pattern

Overlapping groups -- Summary -- 4. Look Around -- Look ahead -- Negative look ahead -- Look around and substitutions -- Look behind -- Negative look behind -- Look around and groups -- Summary -- 5. Performance of Regular Expressions -- Benchmarking regular expressions with Python -- The RegexBuddy tool -- Understanding the Python regex engine -- Backtracking -- Optimization recommendations -- Reuse compiled patterns -- Extract common parts in alternation -- Shortcut to alternation -- Use non-capturing groups when appropriate -- Be specific -- Don't be greedy -- Summary -- Index.