Python Forum

How could I use regex to match everything not in between hyphens? E.g. re.search(r"<>", "- i don't want this - I do want this")

Edit: This particular example is simple, and could be solved using re.split() -- but that won't generally work

Replace the bits you don't want with nothing.

target = "Stuff at front - i don't want this - I do want this"
wanted = re.sub(r'-.*-', '', target)
print(wanted)

Output:
Stuff at front  I do want this

You can do it without regex with str methods.

def get_this(text):
    left, _, right = text.rpartition("-")
    return right.strip()


data = "- i don't want this - I do want this"
result = get_this(data)
print(result)