Programming Python, Second Edition

Strategies for Parsing Text in Python

In the grand scheme of things, there are a variety of ways to handle text processing in Python:

• Built-in string objects

• String module (and method) utilities

• Regular expression matching

• Parser-generator integrations

• Hand-coded parsers

• Running Python code with eval and exec built-ins

For simpler tasks, Python’s built-in string object is often all we really need. Python strings can be indexed, concatenated, sliced, and processed both with built-in functions and with the string module. Our emphasis in this chapter, though, is on higher-level tools and techniques for analyzing textual information. Let’s briefly explore each of the other approaches above with representative examples.