re module - Maximum recursion limit exceeded.

[Tim Peters]

[Vicente Rey Bakaikoa]
> ...
> >>> re.search('a.*?b','a'+'c'*9997)
> >>> re.search('a.*?b','a'+'c'*9998)
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
>   File "/usr/home/rey/python/lib/python2.1/sre.py", line 57, in search
>     return _compile(pattern, flags).search(string)
> RuntimeError: maximum recursion limit exceeded
>
> I am running Python 2.1 ( released ). This is and 'old' bug
> for which F.Lundh was already proposing a path with 2.02b. I would
> have expected the patch to be included with python 2.1.
>
> Am I missing something?

Nope.  /F is now proposing a patch for 2.2 instead.

not-all-limitations-are-easy-to-remove-ly y'rs  - tim


PS:  In the meantime, play with different ways to approach your problem.
You certainly don't need all the heavy regexp machinery to accomplish what
that specific regexp does; but if you're unreasonably fond of regexps, write
it 'a[^b]*b' instead -- then you can search strings with millions of
characters without problems.  Minimal matches are an inefficient hack best
reserved for searching short strings (like, say, mail headers).