When to compile regex?

[Ralf Hildebrandt]

On Sun, 13 Feb 2000 07:02:42 -0500, David Shochat <shochat at chelmsford.com> wrote:
>In section 4.2.3 of the Python Library Reference (1.5.2) it says that
>using compile is more efficient "when the expresion will be used several
>times in a single program". I'm trying to figure out the intended
>meaning of this. Does that mean "executed more than once", or "occurs
>more than once in the program text"? Specifically, if it only occurs
>once, but that is in a loop, is there an advantage to compiling before
>entering the loop?

Of course! It's a loop, and a loop may be traversed multiple times.