[python] How to get the first word in the string

text is :

WYATT    - Ranked # 855 with    0.006   %
XAVIER   - Ranked # 587 with    0.013   %
YONG     - Ranked # 921 with    0.006   %
YOUNG    - Ranked # 807 with    0.007   %

I want to get only

WYATT
XAVIER
YONG
YOUNG

I tried :

(.*)?[ ]

But it gives me the :

WYATT    - Ranked

You shoud do something like :

print line.split()[0]

Use this regex

^\w+

\w+ matches 1 to many characters.

\w is similar to [a-zA-Z0-9_]

^ depicts the start of a string

About Your Regex

Your regex (.*)?[ ] should be ^(.*?)[ ] or ^(.*?)(?=[ ]) if you don't want the space

If you want to feel especially sly, you can write it as this:

(firstWord, rest) = yourLine.split(maxsplit=1)

This is supposed to bring the best from both worlds:

• optimality tweak with maxsplit while splitting with any whitespace
• improved reliability and readability, as argued by the author of the technique.

I kind of fell in love with this solution and it's general unpacking capability, so I had to share it.

Don't need a regex. string[: string.find(' ')]

You don't need regex to split a string on whitespace:

In [1]: text = '''WYATT    - Ranked # 855 with    0.006   %
   ...: XAVIER   - Ranked # 587 with    0.013   %
   ...: YONG     - Ranked # 921 with    0.006   %
   ...: YOUNG    - Ranked # 807 with    0.007   %'''

In [2]: print '\n'.join(line.split()[0] for line in text.split('\n'))
WYATT
XAVIER
YONG
YOUNG