You can use matching groups:
p = re.compile('name (.*) is valid')e.g.
>>> import re>>> p = re.compile('name (.*) is valid')>>> s = """... someline abc... someother line... name my_user_name is valid... some more lines""">>> p.findall(s)['my_user_name']Here I use re.findall rather than re.search to get all instances of my_user_name. Using re.search, you'd need to get the data from the group on the match object:
>>> p.search(s) #gives a match object or None if no match is found<_sre.SRE_Match object at 0xf5c60>>>> p.search(s).group() #entire string that matched'name my_user_name is valid'>>> p.search(s).group(1) #first group that match in the string that matched'my_user_name'As mentioned in the comments, you might want to make your regex non-greedy:
p = re.compile('name (.*?) is valid')to only pick up the stuff between 'name ' and the next ' is valid' (rather than allowing your regex to pick up other ' is valid' in your group.