Character Classes

Lesson 8 of 28 in Coddy's RegEx in Python course.

Character classes allow you to define a set of characters that you want to match. They are created using square brackets [], and they match any one character within the brackets.

Here are some basic examples of character classes:

[abc]: Matches any one of the characters a, b, or c.
[15]: Matches the digit 1 or 5.

import re

text = "bat, bet, bit, but, bot"
pattern = "b[aeiou]t"

matches = re.findall(pattern, text)

print(matches)  # Output: ['bat', 'bet', 'bit', 'but', 'bot']

In the above example, the pattern b[aeiou]t matches any three-letter word that starts with "b" and ends with "t", with any vowel in between.

Challenge

Easy

Write a function named find_vowel_words that takes a text string as input and returns a list of words that start with "c", followed by any vowel (a, e, i, o, u), and end with "t".

Try it yourself

import re

def find_vowel_words(text):
    # Write code here

All lessons in RegEx in Python

1Introduction

Introduction

4Anchors and Quantifiers

Anchors Boundaries Quantifiers Repetitions

7Final Challenges

Extracting Hashtags Finding Email Addresses Valid Phone Numbers Finding Dates Capitalized Words

2re Library

findall search split sub

5Grouping and Advanced Patterns

Grouping Capturing Pipe Operator Alternation Lookaheads Lookbehinds

3Basic Pattern Syntax

Basic Metacharacters LiteralsCharacter ClassesRanges Common Predefined Classes Advanced Predefined Classes

6Advanced Techniques

Escape Metacharacters Escape Sequences