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Python Regular Expressions in Python Introduction to Regular Expressions Word Length

Posted by Kaleb Prado
Kaleb Prado
4,797 Points

RegEx find_words challenge problem

What exactly is wrong with my code? The error message it gives me is 'Bummer: Didn't get the right output. Output was []. Length was 6.' I have looked at it a lot and cannot figure out what exactly I did wrong and am getting frustrated. It is just supposed to return a list of words that are are count words or more based on a given string

word_length.py 
import re

# EXAMPLE:
# >>> find_words(4, "dog, cat, baby, balloon, me")
# ['baby', 'balloon']

def find_words(count, string):
    return re.findall(r"\w{count,}", string)

1 Answer

Peter Vann
Peter Vann
36,427 Points
Peter Vann
Peter Vann
36,427 Points

Hi Kaleb!

Your main issue is that you are trying to use a variable in your regex string, but it is being treated literally.

You need to do something like this (it passes):

import re

# EXAMPLE:
# >>> find_words(4, "dog, cat, baby, balloon, me")
# ['baby', 'balloon']

def find_words(count, string):
    return re.findall(r'\w{' + str(count) + ',}',  string)

This is what injects the variable into the string effectively:

' + str(count) + '

Note that to avoid a concatenation error the integer needs to be cast to a string when concatenating the regex string.

I hope that helps.

Stay safe and happy. coding!

Kaleb Prado
Kaleb Prado
4,797 Points

Thank you