regex question

[proctor]

Paul McGuire wrote:
> "proctor" <12cc104 at gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1168243020.304940.212700 at 42g2000cwt.googlegroups.com...
> >
> >
> > it does work now...however, one more question:  when i type:
> >
> > rx_a = re.compile(r'a|b|c')
> > it works correctly!
> >
>
> Do you see the difference between:
>
> rx_a = re.compile(r'a|b|c')
>
> and
>
> rx_a = re.compile("r'a|b|c'")
>
> There is no difference in the variable datatype between "string" and "raw
> string".  Raw strings are just a notational helper when creating string
> literals that have lots of backslashes in them (as happens a lot with
> regexps).
>
> r'a|b|c'  is the same as 'a|b|c'
> r'\d' is the same as '\\d'
>
> There is no reason to "add raw strings" to your makeRE method, since you
> don't have a single backslash anywhere.  And even if there were a backslash
> in the 'w' argument, it is just a string - no need to treat it differently.
> 
> -- Paul

thanks paul.  this helps.

proctor.