Extract order IDs from support ticket text

Question

Support tickets mention order IDs in free text, always in the form `ORD-` followed by exactly 5 digits.

Write `extract_ids(tickets)` that takes a list of ticket strings and returns a list of the first order ID found in each ticket, or `None` when a ticket contains no valid ID.

Accepted Answer

Step 1: `re.compile` builds the pattern once instead of re-parsing it for every ticket — it matters once you are scanning millions of rows. Step 2: `\d{5}` pins the length to exactly five digits, so the malformed `ORD-123` is correctly ignored. Step 3: `search` finds the first match anywhere in the string; `match` would only look at the start. Step 4: Returning `None` rather than an empty string keeps 'no ID' distinguishable from 'blank ID' downstream.

Extract order IDs from support ticket text

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