another newbie question - regex

[Moshe Zadka]

On 25 Dec 2000, jp at ulgo.koti.com.pl (Jacek) wrote:

> "." - matches any character
> "*" - is 0 or more repetition 
> 
> so ".*" - matches everything?

Yep. And that's the common idiom for "everything too.".

> >>> print re.search(s,".*")
> None
> >>> print re.match(s,".*")
> None

Try

re.search(".*", s)
re.match(".*", s)

Your arguments were backwards.

In general, using re.compile will generate code that is (usually) both
clearer and faster.

everything = re.compile(".*")
everything.search(s)
everything.match(s)