Possible re bug when using ".*"

[Alexander Richert - NOAA Affiliate]

 In a couple recent versions of Python (including 3.8 and 3.10), the
following code:
import re
print(re.sub(".*", "replacement", "pattern"))
yields the output "replacementreplacement".

This behavior does not occur in 3.6.

Which behavior is the desired one? Perhaps relatedly, I noticed that even
in 3.6, the code
print(re.findall(".*","pattern"))
yields ['pattern',''] which is not what I was expecting.

Thanks,
Alex Richert

-- 
Alexander Richert, PhD
*RedLine Performance Systems*