Dot or Period –
The dot ( . ) matches any single character except a newline character.
In [1]: import re
In [2]: text = '''Python is awesome
...: I love Python.'''
In [3]: re.findall('l..e', text)
Out[3]: ['love']
In [4]: re.findall('...e', text)
Out[4]: [' awe', 'some', 'love']How to match a newline character ?
If you want dot (. ) to also match a newline character then you can use the re.DOTALL flag. This will match any single character including a newline character.
In [5]: re.findall('awesome.I', text)
Out[5]: []
In [6]: re.findall('awesome.I', text, flags=re.DOTALL)
Out[6]: ['awesome\nI']How to match a Dot character ?
To match a dot character in a text, you have to escape the dot with a backslash.
In [7]: re.findall('Python.', text)
Out[7]: ['Python ', 'Python.']
In [8]: re.findall('Python\.', text)
Out[8]: ['Python.']