Python email regex doesn't work

Question

I am trying to get all email address from a text file using regular expression and Python but it always returns NoneType while it suppose to return the email. For example:

content = 'My email is [email protected]'
#Compare with suitable regex
emailRegex = re.compile(r'(^[a-zA-Z0-9_.+-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9-]+\.[a-zA-Z0-9-.]+$)')
mo = emailRegex.search(content)
print(mo.group())

I suspect the problem lies in the regex but could not figure out why.

Remove anchors: [`r'[a-zA-Z0-9_.+-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9-]+\.[a-zA-Z0-9-.]+'`](https://ideone.com/rxDrGq). — Wiktor Stribiżew, Aug 03 '15 at 08:54
This is a terrible way to check email address. You might as well check for the presence of `@` only. — nhahtdh, Aug 03 '15 at 09:12
See also [Using a regular expression to validate an email address](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/201323/using-a-regular-expression-to-validate-an-email-address). — Peter Wood, Aug 03 '15 at 10:17

Aziz Alfoudari · Accepted Answer · 2015-08-03T09:56:29.590

2

Because of spaces in content; remove the ^ and $ to match anywhere:

([a-zA-Z0-9_.+-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9-]+\.[a-zA-Z0-9-.]+)

edited Aug 03 '15 at 09:56

answered Aug 03 '15 at 08:55

Aziz Alfoudari

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 03 '15 at 08:56

0

Try this one as a regex, but I am completely not sure whether it will work for you:

([^@|\s]+@[^@]+.[^@|\s]+)

answered Aug 03 '15 at 08:56

Humoyun Ahmad

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`|` inside character class is a red flag - are you sure you want to exclude it from the character class? – nhahtdh Aug 03 '15 at 09:12
@nhahtdh, As I told, I am not sure that it will work in all cases, it worked on me when I faced the same problem – Humoyun Ahmad Aug 03 '15 at 09:41
`|` should not be used to say "alternation" in character class. `[@\s]` is already an alternation of 2 choices `@` or space character class. The extra `|` will add the literal `|` to the list of alternation. – nhahtdh Aug 03 '15 at 09:51
@nhahtdh, I just checked again and it worked on 'My email is [email protected]' perfectly, returning "[email protected]" – Humoyun Ahmad Aug 03 '15 at 11:24
I'm not commenting about the correctness of your regex with respect to the question. I'm saying `|` should not be used as "alternation" in character class. – nhahtdh Aug 03 '15 at 11:33

niallhaslam · Answer 3 · 2015-08-03T09:17:29.827

Your regular expression doesn't match the pattern.

I normally call the regex search like this:

mo = re.search(regex, searchstring)

So in your case I would try

content = 'My email is [email protected]'
#Compare with suitable regex
emailRegex = re.compile(r'gmail')
mo = re.search(emailRegex, content)
print(mo.group())`

You can test your regex here: https://regex101.com/ This will work:

([a-zA-Z0-9_.+-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9-]+\.[a-zA-Z0-9-.]+$)

Python email regex doesn't work

3 Answers3