search
Search
Login
Unlock 100+ guides
menu
menu
web
search toc
close
Outline
Comments
Log in or sign up
Cancel
Post
account_circle
Profile
exit_to_app
Sign out
What does this mean?
Why is this true?
Give me some examples!
search
keyboard_voice
close
Searching Tips
Search for a recipe:
"Creating a table in MySQL"
Search for an API documentation: "@append"
Search for code: "!dataframe"
Apply a tag filter: "#python"
Useful Shortcuts
/ to open search panel
Esc to close search panel
to navigate between search results
d to clear all current filters
Enter to expand content preview
icon_star
Doc Search
icon_star
Code Search Beta
SORRY NOTHING FOUND!
mic
Start speaking...
Voice search is only supported in Safari and Chrome.
Navigate to

Finding elements using regular expression in Beautiful Soup

schedule Aug 11, 2023
Last updated
local_offer
PythonBeautiful Soup
Tags
tocTable of Contents
expand_more
mode_heat
Master the mathematics behind data science with 100+ top-tier guides
Start your free 7-days trial now!

To find elements using regular expression, use the find_all(~) method and pass in the regular expression for the text parameter.

Example

Consider the following HTML document:

my_html = """
   <p>A cat sat</p>
   <p>on a mat</p>
"""
soup = BeautifulSoup(my_html)

To find all elements that contain the words "cat" and "mat":

my_regex = re.compile("[cm]at")
matched_strings = soup.find_all(text=my_regex)

for matched_string in matched_strings:
   print(matched_string.parent)
<p>A cat sat</p>
<p>on a mat</p>

Since we've specified the text parameter, the return value of find_all(~) is a list of NavigableString objects. These objects are just like your standard Python string, except that they have helper properties and methods to navigate around the HTML document. Here, we're using its parent property, which returns the enclosing Tag object.

robocat
Published by Isshin Inada
Edited by 0 others
Did you find this page useful?
thumb_up
thumb_down
Comment
Citation
Ask a question or leave a feedback...
thumb_up
2
thumb_down
2
chat_bubble_outline
0
settings
Enjoy our search
Hit / to insta-search docs and recipes!