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I need to check wether the format of an input is "00 - 00 - 00" (12 characters without quotation marks) or not and then run block 1 or 2 based on result.

[0-9][0-9] - [0-9][0-9] - [0-9][0-9] won't do what I want if the input is, for example, "aaaa 00 - 00 - 00 aaa". I want to keep asking the user for input until the format is exactly 00 - 00 - 00, 12 characters.

Help?

Avoid regex like the plague that it is...

def validate(s='00 - 00 - 00'):
    parts = s.split(' - ')
    return len(parts) == 3 and all(len(p) == 2 and p.isdigit() for p in parts)

# -----------------------

def validate_with_re(s='00 - 00 - 00'):
    return bool(re.search(r'^\d\d - \d\d - \d\d$', s))

Thank you, @ccc!