Question

A regular Expression for fnding a relative path

Asked by: dmontgom

Hi.

I need a regular expression for finding relatives paths e.g. ../img/xxx.gif or ./img/xxx.gif or img/xxx.gif  in general ../path/to/file/xxx.gif



I am using python2.5.

Please provide a clear solution...I am not an expert in regex...

Thanks



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Asked On
2009-05-22 at 17:24:30ID24432664
Tags

Python

,

Regular Expression

,

regex

Topics

Python Scripting Language

,

Regular Expressions

Participating Experts
3
Points
350
Comments
14

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Answers

 

by: HonorGodPosted on 2009-05-22 at 18:14:58ID: 24456260

Something like this perhaps?

>>> import re
>>>
>>> def isRelative( path ) :
...   RE = re.compile( r'\.\.?[\\/]' )
...   return ( RE.search( path ) != None )
...
>>> isRelative( r'../img/xxx.gif' )
True
>>>

                                              
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by: HonorGodPosted on 2009-05-22 at 18:20:20ID: 24456280

better...

>>> def isRelative( path ) :
...   RE = re.compile( r'(^|[\\/])\.\.?[\\/]' )
...   return ( RE.search( path ) != None )
...
>>> isRelative( 'a./b' )
False
>>> isRelative( './b' )
True
>>> isRelative( 'a../b' )
False
>>> isRelative( 'img/xxx.gif' )
False
>>> isRelative( '../path/to/file/xxx.gif' )
True
>>>

                                              
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by: HonorGodPosted on 2009-05-22 at 18:35:41ID: 24456364

best?

By doing it this way, the relative path regular expression is compiled only once

>>> def isRelative( path, RE = None ) :
...   if not RE :
...     RE = re.compile( r'(^|[\\/])\.\.?[\\/]' )
...   return ( RE.search( path ) != None )
...
>>> isRelative( 'a./b' )
False
>>> isRelative( './b' )
True
>>> isRelative( 'a../b' )
False
>>> isRelative( 'img/xxx.gif' )
False
>>> isRelative( '../path/to/file/xxx.gif' )
True
>>>

                                              
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by: HonorGodPosted on 2009-05-22 at 18:37:58ID: 24456371

ah.  I was thinking of an object method.

Nevermind.  Go with the 2nd... (i.e., better)

 

by: dmontgomPosted on 2009-05-22 at 19:00:30ID: 24456411

Hi,

My bad...I was not clear....

I have a html page and there are relative tags in java scripts. I need to search the string and find patters that look like a relative url so I can do a find and replace....  I will be looking for files that have extensions if e.g. css,js,jpg etc....

So...if given this string "adadfadf adafd ../test/test.gif adfadfaf"  how can I do this for any arbitrary pattern?

 

by: HonorGodPosted on 2009-05-22 at 19:06:21ID: 24456424

Ah, so you want to locate the relative address substring(s) within a string?

 

by: HonorGodPosted on 2009-05-22 at 19:14:14ID: 24456446

Something like this?

>>> def Relative( str ) :
...   RE = re.compile( r'(^|[\\/])\.\.?[\\/]' )
...   result = []
...   for data in str.split() :
...     if RE.search( data ) != None :
...       result.append( data )
...   return result
...
>>> Relative( "adadfadf adafd ../test/test.gif adfadfaf" )
['../test/test.gif']
>>>

                                              
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by: climbgunksPosted on 2009-05-22 at 20:49:29ID: 24456638


The answer HonorGod gave is quite good.   It doesn't match the img/xxx.gif case you gave, but that's easily fixed.

The problem, however, isn't particularly well defined.   For example, is  "foo.gif" a relative path?   Strictly speaking it is, but that may not be what you have in mind.  

Are you looking for all paths that have at least one / (or \) and don't start at the root (don't begin with a /).   What's your platform (Windows, Linux, ...)?

Again, using HG's script above, where it splits into strings first, you can use this:

r'(^[^\\/].*[\\/].*)'

which basically says: 1) don't start w/ a  / or \, then there must be at least one / or \ somewhere else in the string.

 

by: dmontgomPosted on 2009-05-22 at 22:22:34ID: 24456811

cool...almost there...here a real example...

because of the path between the ' ' it did not find it.....


tt = """ <body onload="MM_preloadImages('../images_home/home1.gif ','../images_home/started1.gif','../images_home/pricing1.gif','../images_home/success1.gif','../images_home/how1.gif','../images_home/about1.gif','../images_home/faqs1.gif','../images_home/home_step01.gif','../images_home/home_step02.gif','../images_home/home_step03.gif')">
"""

 

by: climbgunksPosted on 2009-05-22 at 22:34:56ID: 24456837

change the split above to:

for data in str.split(''") :

that's double quote, single quote, double quote... I don't think you have to escape the ' quote... but if you do, its

"\'"

basically, instead of splitting on whitespace, we're splitting on the single quotes

 

by: ghostdog74Posted on 2009-05-22 at 22:48:37ID: 24456865

no need for regular expression

tt = """ <body onload="MM_preloadImages('../images_home/home1.gif ','../images_home/started1.gif','../images_home/pricing1.gif','../images_home/success1.gif','../images_home/how1.gif','../images_home/about1.gif','../images_home/faqs1.gif','../images_home/home_step01.gif','../images_home/home_step02.gif','../images_home/home_step03.gif')">
"""
for item in tt.split(","):
    item = item[ item.index("../"):]
    print item[: item.index("'")]

                                              
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by: dmontgomPosted on 2009-05-22 at 22:58:55ID: 24456886

what is need is regex...there is a larger scope here...

I use beautiful soup is parse html tags....

I need regex it handle arbitrary complexity....

 

by: dmontgomPosted on 2009-05-22 at 23:09:21ID: 24456906

PS  jiust imagine a big html file.....,is there a regex way to find all relative links?  e.g. / ./ ../ ../../ etc....

HonorGod's code worked great for all all cases...just not if there is a quote e.g.  '' or a " "..  Also it wont work if the rel path is e.g. images/test.gif.

 

by: HonorGodPosted on 2009-09-19 at 05:13:14ID: 25372667

Thanks for the grade & points.

Good luck and have a great day.

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