Is it possible to use the difference between two characters set as one character set in regex? | Sololearn: Learn to code for FREE!
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Is it possible to use the difference between two characters set as one character set in regex?

Suppose I have a character set [ancde]. Now, I want to print the words of a sentence where the first character is a word character which is any word character except [ancde] and then the next two character to match is 'at' so if there is a sentence that has "aat dat vat cat bat tat dat fat fet ere tyy jat nat dat", The following pattern list will be ['vat', 'bat', 'tat', 'fat', 'jat'] I can do this by comparing with \W(isn't word char) https://code.sololearn.com/c85vPGc8HKy9 But I want something like we use in set {1,2,3,4,5}-{1,3,4}={2,5} So is it possible to directly use the difference of \w character and the char set [ancde]? Thank you and sorry for my bad English.

1st Sep 2022, 7:58 AM
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2 Answers
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You can fake a set intersection using positive lookahead. r'(?=\w)[^ancde]at' The bracket with ?= will check if the next character is a word character without actually consuming the character. If the lookahead matches, the string will be matched against [^ancde] which does just what you would expect.
1st Sep 2022, 12:39 PM
Schindlabua
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I see .That's the thing I was looking for.Thank you very much @Schindlabua
1st Sep 2022, 1:33 PM
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