How to Find Non-word Character: Python Regex Example

In Python, the regular expression pattern \W matches any non-word character. Here's an example of usage. The valid word characters are [a-zA-Z0-9_]. \W (upper case W) matches any non-word character.

Regex examples to find non-word char

#1 Example

import re

text = "Hello, world! How are you today?"

non_words = re.findall(r'\W', text)

print(non_words)

In the above example, the re.findall() function is used to find all non-word characters in the text string using the regular expression pattern \W. The output will be a list of non-word characters found in the string:

Output

[',', '!', ' ', ' ', '?']

This includes punctuation marks and spaces but excludes letters, digits, and underscores, which are considered word characters in regular expressions.

#2 Example

import re
text = "Hello, world! How are non-word-char:! you today?"
non_words = re.findall(r'non-word-char:\W', text)
print(non_words)

Output

['non-word-char:!']

Related

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• Non-word char tutorial from Google