[Tutor] Regex/Raw String confusion

[Jim Byrnes]

I am reading Automate The Boring Stuff With Python.  In the chapter on 
Regular Expressions he talks about the python escape character being a 
'\' and regex using alot of backslashes. Then he says, <quote> However, 
by putting an r before the first quote of the string value, you can 
mark the string as a raw sting, which does not escape characters.</quote>

He give this example:

import re

phoneNumRegex = re.compile(r'\d\d\d-\d\d\d-\d\d\d\d')
mo = phoneNumRegex.search('My number is 415-555-4242.')
print('Phone number found: ' + mo.group())


A couple of pages later he talks about parentheses having special 
meaning in regex and what to do if they are in your text.

<qoute>In this case, you need to escape the ( and )  characters with a 
backslash. The \( and \) escape characters in the raw string passed to 
re.compile() will match actual parenthesis characters.</qoute>

import re

phoneNumRegex = re.compile(r'(\(\d\d\d\)) (\d\d\d-\d\d\d\d)')
mo = phoneNumRegex.search('My phone number is: (415) 555-4242.')
print(mo.group(1))
print()
print(mo.group(2))

Both examples work, but one place he says you can't escape raw strings 
and the other he says you can.  What am I missing here?

Regards, Jim