# coding=utf8
# the above tag defines encoding for this document and is for Python 2.x compatibility
import re
regex = r"\b-(\s+(?:and|to|or)(?:\s+\w+)*\s+\w+(-\w[\w-]*))"
test_str = ("But seeing them playing to seven- and eight-year-olds is beautiful\n"
"The country was in the uproar of pre- and then post-independence civil war but the mood here is most often joyous")
subst = "\\2\\1"
# You can manually specify the number of replacements by changing the 4th argument
result = re.sub(regex, subst, test_str, 0, re.MULTILINE)
if result:
print (result)
# Note: for Python 2.7 compatibility, use ur"" to prefix the regex and u"" to prefix the test string and substitution.
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for Python, please visit: https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html