# coding=utf8
# the above tag defines encoding for this document and is for Python 2.x compatibility
import re
regex = (r"(?x) # Allow comments in regex (ignore whitespace)\n"
r"(?: # Repeat *\n"
r" [^(|)]*+ # Match every char except ( ) or |\n"
r" ( # 1. Group 1\n"
r" \( # Opening paren\n"
r" (?: # chars inside:\n"
r" [^()]++ # a. everything inside parens except nested parens\n"
r" | # or\n"
r" (?1) # b. nested parens (recurse group 1)\n"
r" ) #\n"
r" \) # Until closing paren.\n"
r" )?+ # (end of group 1)\n"
r")*+ #\n"
r"\K # Keep text out of match\n"
r"\| # Match a pipe")
test_str = "example|example (example(example))|example|example|example(example|example|example(example|example))|example"
subst = ""
# You can manually specify the number of replacements by changing the 4th argument
result = re.sub(regex, subst, test_str, 0)
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