Trying to check a string with startswith

Question

I'm trying to use startswith to check if something begins with this symbol '<' and then alphanumerical characters. My code is:

if (line.startswith("<" + r"w\+")):

I was expecting that if line started with <inserttexthere> or <inserttexthere it would output True but it's not working. It's probably something to do with my use of re and that I didn't format the check for alphanum characters properly.

Answer 1

It's because you doesn't use regex. line.startswith("<" + r"w\+") means check if regex start with string "<w\\+" exact value not regex interpretation.

In addition startswith doesn't allow regex so you should check it this way:

import re

# Edit as @donkopotamus pointed well that match doesn't require '^' at the begining
in_re = re.compile(r'<\w+')

print(bool(in_re.match('<test true')))
print(bool(in_re.match('test false')))
print(bool(in_re.match('test <false 2')))

It returns:

True
False
False