[New-bugs-announce] [issue17184] re.VERBOSE doesn't respect whitespace in '( ?P<foo>...)'

[Roy Smith]

New submission from Roy Smith:

# Python 2.7.3
# Ubuntu 12.04

import re
pattern = r"( ?P<phrase>.*)"
regex = re.compile(pattern, re.VERBOSE)

The above raises an exception in re.compile():

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./try.py", line 6, in <module>
    regex = re.compile(pattern, re.VERBOSE)
  File "/home/roy/env/python/lib/python2.7/re.py", line 190, in compile
    return _compile(pattern, flags)
  File "/home/roy/env/python/lib/python2.7/re.py", line 242, in _compile
    raise error, v # invalid expression
sre_constants.error: nothing to repeat

The problem appears to be that re.VERBOSE isn't ignoring the space after the "(".

Maybe this is a duplicate of issue15606 ?

----------
components: Library (Lib)
messages: 181927
nosy: roysmith
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: re.VERBOSE doesn't respect whitespace in '( ?P<foo>...)'
type: behavior
versions: Python 2.7

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue17184>
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