When to compile regex?

[Kelly Lynn Martin]

On Sun, 13 Feb 2000 07:02:42 -0500, David Shochat <shochat at chelmsford.com> said:

>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? 

Yes.

Kelly