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- [Tutor] In this and
the next several videos,

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we're going to take a look at
various other search functions

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that are part of the re module.

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Now previously, we looked
at the full match function,

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which only returned a match
if in fact the pattern

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that we were trying to match,

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matched the entire string
in which we were searching.

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Now we'll look at various other methods

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that give us a little
bit more flexibility.

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And we're going to begin that

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with the function called search

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which is capable of finding
the very first match anywhere

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in the string so it doesn't
have to match the entire thing.

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Now the search function is
either going to return none

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if a match is not found, which
of course evaluates to false.

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And if it finds a match,
it will return an object

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of the data type SRE_Match.

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Not that you need to know
that data type directly,

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but there is an object that
contains the match or matches

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if we're using some of
the other functions,

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we'll look at shortly, and
that object has methods on it.

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So this is the first search
that we're going to perform.

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In this case, we're looking
for the literal string Python

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in the string, Python is fun,
and clearly it's in there.

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So I'll go ahead and execute that

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and just to show you
that this is an object,

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if I type result. and hit Tab,

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you can see there's a bunch
of different methods inside

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that match object that
represents whatever,

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sub string was actually matched.

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Now, let me go ahead and get rid of that.

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Let's put in a little
if else expression here.

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So as you can see,
we're using result.group

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if the result exists,

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otherwise we're going to show not found.

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Now, the result object
is going to be again none

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if there was no match

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or a match object if there was a match.

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Any object that is not none
is going to evaluate to true,

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there are a few exceptions
to that empty strings,

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empty lists, empty data structures,

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in general, will evaluate to false,

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but other types of objects
will evaluate to true.

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So if we have a match object,

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then we're going to get
the group that matched

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and in this case, that group
is going to be the string,

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the literal string, Python.

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And of course, we could have
used a regular expression

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and matched some pattern within the string

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if we wanted to as well.

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Now, of course, if you don't
get a match, like I said,

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you are going to get
none as the return value.

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So if I were to search for
fun, that is in the string,

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but if I add an exclamation point to that,

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which is not in the string,

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then we can go ahead and once again,

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evaluate the snippet that's
now showing as number five here

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and you see we get not found

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because indeed, fun with an
exclamation point was not part

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of that string.

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Now there's another similar method

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or function rather to search called match.

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The difference between
search and match is that,

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search will find the first
match anywhere in the string

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whereas match only looks for a match

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at the beginning of a string.