>>> p = r"rip (?P<thing>.+) from (?P<object>.+)"
>>> re.search(p, "rip sheet from red book")
<_sre.SRE_Match object; span=(0, 23), match='rip sheet from red book'>
>>> res = re.search(p, "rip sheet from red book")
>>> res.groups
<built-in method groups of _sre.SRE_Match object at 0x7fa2c61e2938>
>>> res.groups()
('sheet', 'red book')