chevron_left Finding elements Cookbook

Finding elements by class Finding elements by id Finding elements that are direct descendants Finding elements that contain a specific text Finding elements by tag name Finding elements that contain all the specified classes Finding elements that only contain specific attributes and no other attributes Finding elements using regular expression Limiting the number of returned results Finding elements by attribute

thumb_up

thumb_down

chat_bubble_outline
0
 auto_stories new 
settings

Finding elements using regular expression in Beautiful Soup

Programming

chevron_right

Python

chevron_right

Beautiful Soup

chevron_right

Cookbooks

chevron_right

Finding elements Cookbook

schedule Jul 1, 2022

Last updated

local_offer Python●Beautiful Soup

Example

Consider the following HTML document:


        
        
            
                
                
                    my_html = """
       <p>A cat sat</p>
       <p>on a mat</p>
"""
soup = BeautifulSoup(my_html)

To find all elements that contain the words "cat" and "mat":


        
        
            
                
                
                    my_regex = re.compile("[cm]at")
matched_strings = soup.find_all(text=my_regex)

for matched_string in matched_strings:
       print(matched_string.parent)
                
            
            <p>A cat sat</p>
<p>on a mat</p>

Since we've specified the text parameter, the return value of find_all(~) is a list of NavigableString objects. These objects are just like your standard Python string, except that they have helper properties and methods to navigate around the HTML document. Here, we're using its parent property, which returns the enclosing Tag object.

mail

Join our newsletter for updates on new DS/ML comprehensive guides (spam-free)

Published by Isshin Inada

Edited by 0 others

Did you find this page useful?

thumb_up

thumb_down

Comment

Citation

Share on Twitter

Share on Facebook

Ask a question or leave a feedback...

thumb_up

thumb_down

chat_bubble_outline

settings

Enjoy our search

Hit / to insta-search docs and recipes!