Python how to split a single string in a list, into various strings by splitting it with multiple delimiters

Question

I am writing a program for a calendar and in a specific function, I have to add/delete a calendar event. In my delete_event function, I am taking the already given list of events [date;time+duration] and I essentially need to split each portion of the string in the list. Ex. [2/3/2022;10:00+50] needs to be [2/3/2022, 10:00, 50]. I have already attempted using the re module but it still wouldn't split properly. Here's my code:

def delete_event(self,date,time):
        
        '''Delete the event at the specified date and time'''

        event_listt = str(self.event_list)
        for event in event_listt:
            event_list = re.split(', |_|-|!|\+|;', event)
            for event in event_list:
                event_date = event_list[0]
                event_time = event_list[1] 
                
                try:
                    if event_date == date and event_time == time:
                        del event
                        print("Event successfully deleted.")
                except:
                    print("Event was not deleted.")
                    return False
                
        
  

Answer 1

You can use named capture groups to create a dictionary for each event from a list of events:

import re

pattern = re.compile(r"(?P<date>\d{1,2}\/\d{1,2}\/\d{4});(?P<time>\d{1,2}:\d{1,2})\+(?P<duration>\d+)")

events = ["2/3/2022;10:00+50", "2/4/2022;11:00+40"]
event_data = [match.groupdict() for event in events for match in pattern.finditer(event)]

Output:

[{'date': '2/3/2022', 'time': '10:00', 'duration': '50'},
 {'date': '2/4/2022', 'time': '11:00', 'duration': '40'}]

Note this will also work if the strings have square brackets in them for some reason:

In [4]: events = ["[2/3/2022;10:00+50]", "[2/4/2022;11:00+40]"]

In [5]: [match.groupdict() for event in events for match in pattern.finditer(event)]
Out[5]:
[{'date': '2/3/2022', 'time': '10:00', 'duration': '50'},
 {'date': '2/4/2022', 'time': '11:00', 'duration': '40'}]

Answer 2

I would be tempted to not use regular expressions at all and do it with str.replace() and str.split(). Your delimiters are semicolon (;) and plus sign(+).

You could replace plus sign with semicolon and then split the string:

event_list = event.replace('+', ';').split(';'). 

But if you want to stick with regular expressions, I think you can put all of your delimiters in square brackets and it's treated like a list of characters. However, + is a special character and you'll have to escape it with a forward slash:

event_list = re.split('[;\+]', event)