In order to replace text using regular expression use the re.sub function:
sub(pattern, repl, string[, count, flags])
It will replace non-everlaping instances of pattern by the text passed as string. If you need to analyze the match to extract information about specific group captures, for instance, you can pass a function to the string argument. more info here.
Examples
>>> import re
>>> re.sub(r'a', 'b', 'banana')
'bbnbnb'
>>> re.sub(r'/\d+', '/{id}', '/andre/23/abobora/43435')
'/andre/{id}/abobora/{id}'
For this particular case, if using re module is overkill, how about using split (or rsplit) method as
se='</html>'
z.write(article.split(se)[0]+se)
For example,
#!/usr/bin/python
article='''<html>Larala
Ponta Monta
</html>Kurimon
Waff Moff
'''
z=open('out.txt','w')
se='</html>'
z.write(article.split(se)[0]+se)
outputs out.txt as
<html>Larala
Ponta Monta
</html>
You can use the re module for regexes, but regexes are probably overkill for what you want. I might try something like
z.write(article[:article.index("</html>") + 7]
This is much cleaner, and should be much faster than a regex based solution.
Source: Stackoverflow.com