RegEx Get string between two strings that has line breaks

Question

I have the following test (formatted just like below):

      My Class: TEST DATA

      Test Section: 


        

Answer 1

Get the matched group from index 1

Test Section:([\S\s]*)</td>

Live demo

Note: change the last part as per your need.

sample code:

import re
p = re.compile(ur'Test Section:([\S\s]*)</td>', re.MULTILINE)
test_str = u"..."

re.findall(p, test_str)

Pattern Explanation:

  Test Section:            'Test Section:'
  (                        group and capture to \1:
    [\S\s]*                  any character of: non-whitespace (all
                             but \n, \r, \t, \f, and " "), whitespace
                             (\n, \r, \t, \f, and " ") (0 or more
                             times (matching the most amount
                             possible))
  )                        end of \1
  </td>                    '</td>'

Answer 2

Use re.S or re.DOTALL flags. Or prepend the regular expression with (?s) to make . matches all character (including newline).

Without the flags, . does not match newline.

(?s)(?<=Test)(.*?)(?=</td>)

---

Example:

>>> s = '''<td scope="row" align="left">
...       My Class: TEST DATA<br>
...       Test Section: <br>
...       MY SECTION<br>
...       MY SECTION 2<br>
...     </td>'''
>>>
>>> import re
>>> re.findall('(?<=Test)(.*?)(?=</td>)', s)  # without flags
[]
>>> re.findall('(?<=Test)(.*?)(?=</td>)', s, flags=re.S)
[' Section: <br>\n      MY SECTION<br>\n      MY SECTION 2<br>\n    ']
>>> re.findall('(?s)(?<=Test)(.*?)(?=</td>)', s)
[' Section: <br>\n      MY SECTION<br>\n      MY SECTION 2<br>\n    ']