Raw string substitution problem

[Rhodri James]

On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 17:58:08 -0000, Alan G Isaac <alan.isaac at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> On 12/17/2009 7:59 PM, Rhodri James wrote:
>> "re.compile('a\\nc')" passes a sequence of four characters to
>> re.compile: 'a', '\', 'n' and 'c'.  re.compile() then does it's own
>> interpretation: 'a' passes through as is, '\' flags an escape which
>> combined with 'n' produces the newline character (0x0a), and 'c' passes
>> through as is.
>
>
> I got that from MRAB's posts. (Thanks.)
> What I'm not getting is why the replacement string
> gets this particular interpretation.  What is the payoff?

So that the substitution escapes \1, \2 and so on work.

-- 
Rhodri James *-* Wildebeeste Herder to the Masses