from pyparsing import * teststr = 'please /* ignoreme: | oops */ findme: | kthx' parser = Word(printables)('leadWord') + SkipTo('|')('statement') print parser.parseString(teststr).statement parser.ignore(cStyleComment) print parser.parseString(teststr).statement parser = Combine(parser) print parser.parseString(teststr).statement parser.ignore(cStyleComment) print parser.parseString(teststr).statement