import re
data = "[json][17:50 timestamp] hello [mike18][18:06 timestamp] hi"
print( re.split("\[(.*?)\]\[(.*?)\][^a-zA-Z0-9_]", data) )
The result I expected is:
["[json][17:50 timestamp] hello", "[mike18][18:06 timestamp] hi"]
But the real result is:
['', 'json', '17:50 timestamp', 'hello ', 'mike18', '18:06 timestamp', 'hi']
What regular expression should I use?
You can use re.findall instead with a pattern that matches any number of square-bracket-enclosed sequences followed by a sequence of non-square-bracket characters. Use a positive lookahead pattern to ensure that it is followed by either another square bracket or the end of the string:
re.findall(r'\s*((?:\[.*?\])*\s*[^[]+?)(?=\s*\[|$)', data)
This returns:
['[json][17:50 timestamp] hello', '[mike18][18:06 timestamp] hi']
Note that with the positive lookahead pattern you would be able to avoid matching a trailing space, which @WiktorStribiżew's solution in the comment would include but your expected output does not.
