Matching patterns in Python

Question

I have an XML file which contains the following strings:

abcdef
 pqrst


        

Answer 1

Seems I did it for >:

re.sub('(?','greater than', xml_string)

? - negative lookbehind assertion,

?! - negative lookahead assertion,

(...)(...) is logical AND,

so whole expression means "substitute all occurences of '>' which (does not start with ' " ') and (does not start with ' "') and ( does not end with ' ')

case < is similar