re.match

[Bob Cannard]

> Dave Brueck wrote:
> Hi Bob,
> 
> '$' matches 'end of string', so you _can_ use re.match to test "Is this string a Thing".

Heh. I already knew that, Dave; apparently my original message
wasn't clear enough. My point was that there's no way to do it
without constructing a second regular expression, which is
inefficient and clumsy. What is wanted is something like:

def fullmatch(r, s):
    return re.match(r + '$', s)

but which, by analogy with re.match, does not have the overhead
of constructing and compiling a new regular expression; which
works equally well whether r is a string or a compiled re; which
works regardless of whether or not r already has a $ at the end.

I'm just surprised that Python has a separate function for matching
at the start of a string but seems to lack one for matching an
entire string. The issue is efficient re-use of a compiled regular
expression in different situations, not "how to do this".

Cheers,

       Bob.