How to parse formatted text for WordPress API integration using Python

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1

I’m working on a Python script that needs to process pre-formatted text and prepare it for WordPress API submission. The text contains headers and paragraphs that need to be extracted properly.

Here’s a sample of what I’m dealing with:

content = '**Title: Main heading**\n\nRegular paragraph content here.\n\n**Section: First subsection**\n\nContent under first section.\n\nAnother paragraph with line break.\n\n**Section: Second subsection**\n\n**Subsection: Nested heading'

I attempted these regex patterns:

full_text = content
heading_match = re.findall('Title.*?ph.', full_text)

Also tried:

full_text = content
heading_match = re.findall('Title.*?\n\n.', full_text)

Both attempts return an empty result for heading_match.

What’s the best way to extract these sections? Should I stick with regex findall or consider other parsing methods? My end goal is formatting this content properly for WordPress blog creation.

2

Your regex patterns are way too specific and don’t match the actual text structure. The sample shows **Title: Main heading** but your regex searches for Title.*?ph. - that pattern doesn’t exist. Try a completely different approach. Split the content on double asterisks first, then handle each section separately. Split on \n\n to grab paragraphs, then check if they start and end with **. You’ll have much better control over finding headers this way. For WordPress API stuff, you need to convert those markdown headers into proper HTML tags. The REST API wants HTML format, so **Title: Main heading** needs to become <h2>Main heading</h2> or whatever fits your hierarchy. I’ve had way better luck building a simple parser that goes line by line instead of wrestling with complex regex for content formatting. It breaks way less when the input format changes slightly.

3

regex won’t work here - ur pattern doesn’t match the format. try re.split(r'\*\*.*?\*\*') to split sections first, then handle each chunk. or just use .split('**') - might work better for wordpress without making it complic8ed.

4

Skip the regex - it’ll drive you crazy with edge cases and formatting quirks. Trust me on this one.

You need automated text processing that handles WordPress API formatting without building custom parsers. I’ve been through similar content migrations where regex turns into a total mess at scale.

Build a workflow that grabs your formatted text, auto-parses everything, and pushes clean content straight to WordPress through their REST API. Map your markdown headers to proper HTML, fix paragraph breaks, throw in metadata - done.

Best part? No regex maintenance or edge case nightmares. Configure your content format once, set the WordPress API endpoint, and it runs everything from parsing to publishing.

Used this for migrating hundreds of blog posts - saved weeks of regex debugging hell. Plus you get error handling and retry logic.

5

The Problem:

You’re attempting to extract headers and paragraphs from a Python string using regular expressions, but your current regex patterns aren’t correctly matching the input text’s structure. Your goal is to prepare this pre-formatted text for submission to the WordPress API.

:thinking: Understanding the “Why” (The Root Cause):

Your initial regular expressions failed because they didn’t accurately account for the multiline nature of the input string and the specific formatting of the headers. re.findall('Title.*?ph.', full_text) and re.findall('Title.*?\\n\\n.', full_text) are too specific and don’t capture the variability in the text between the header markers (**). Regular expressions can become unwieldy and difficult to maintain when dealing with complex or slightly variable text structures. A more robust approach involves separating the header extraction from the paragraph extraction, making the process clearer and less prone to errors.

:gear: Step-by-Step Guide:

Step 1: Extract Headers and Their Associated Content:

Use a regular expression that captures both the headers and their associated content. The following pattern uses non-capturing groups and lookaheads to effectively identify headers and their subsequent text:

import re

content = '**Title: Main heading**\n\nRegular paragraph content here.\n\n**Section: First subsection**\n\nContent under first section.\n\nAnother paragraph with line break.\n\n**Section: Second subsection**\n\n**Subsection: Nested heading**'

sections = re.findall(r'\*\*(.*?)\*\*(.*?)(?=\*\*|$)', content, re.DOTALL)

This regex works as follows:

  • \*\*: Matches the literal ** characters that delimit headers.
  • (.*?): Captures the header text (non-greedy).
  • \*\*: Matches the closing ** of the header.
  • (.*?): Captures the content associated with the header (non-greedy).
  • (?=\*\*|$): This is a positive lookahead assertion. It ensures that the match ends either at the next ** (another header) or the end of the string ($).
  • re.DOTALL: This flag allows the . to match newline characters, ensuring that multiline content is correctly captured.

Step 2: Process and Format the Extracted Content:

Iterate through the sections list and convert each header and content pair into HTML. You’ll need to determine the appropriate HTML heading level based on the header’s nesting level:

html_output = ""
for header, text in sections:
    header_level = 2  # Default to <h2>
    if "Subsection" in header:
        header_level = 4 #Use <h4> for subsections
    elif "Section" in header:
        header_level = 3 #Use <h3> for sections

    cleaned_text = text.strip()
    html_output += f"<h{header_level}>{header.split(':')[1].strip()}</h{header_level}>\n<p>{cleaned_text.replace('\n\n', '</p>\n<p>')}</p>\n"

print(html_output)

This code cleans up extra whitespace and converts the text into paragraphs using <p> tags. Multiple line breaks are converted into closing and opening paragraph tags to maintain consistent formatting.

Step 3: Submit to WordPress API:

Use the WordPress REST API to submit the generated html_output. You will need to construct the appropriate API request with authentication and post data. This step is specific to the WordPress REST API and requires further research on its documentation.

:mag: Common Pitfalls & What to Check Next:

  • Header Variations: The regex assumes a consistent header format (**Header: Text**). Modify the regex if your headers have variations.
  • Nested Headers: The current code handles two levels of nested headers (Section and Subsection). Add more logic to handle additional levels if needed.
  • HTML Sanitization: Always sanitize user-supplied content to prevent XSS vulnerabilities before injecting it into your HTML. Use appropriate libraries for secure HTML sanitization.
  • Error Handling: Add error handling to gracefully manage cases where the regex fails to match or the WordPress API request fails.
  • WordPress API Authentication: Ensure your code correctly handles authentication with the WordPress REST API.

:speech_balloon: Still running into issues? Share your (sanitized) config files, the exact command you ran, and any other relevant details. The community is here to help!

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