<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >I know I can use a variable in regular expressions. I want to use a >regex to find something based on the beginning of the string.
You're coming from a Perl background, right? No-one else would think of using a regexp for such a simple thing. There are two things you need to learn: (a) Python doesn't do automatic variable interpolation in strings. (b) For simple find and replace operations, there are string methods which are easier and faster than regexps. >Yesterday's date is 20070731, and assigned to the variable >"yesterday_date". I want to loop thru a directory and find all of the >yesterday's data ONLY IF the feature class has the date at the >BEGINNING of the filename. > >Sample strings: >20070731_test1 >Copy20070731_test1 >20070731_test2 >Copy20070731_test2 >20070731_test3 >Copy20070731_test3 > >I don't want the one's that start with "Copy". >>> "20070731_test1".startswith(yesterday_date) True >>> "Copy20070731_test1".startswith(yesterday_date) False -- \S -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://www.chaos.org.uk/~sion/ "Frankly I have no feelings towards penguins one way or the other" -- Arthur C. Clarke her nu becomeþ se bera eadward ofdun hlæddre heafdes bæce bump bump bump
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