[Python-Dev] why we have both re.match and re.string?

[Luca Sangiacomo]

Hi,
I hope the question is not too silly, but why I would like to understand 
the advantages of having both re.match() and re.search(). Wouldn't be 
more clear to have just one function with one additional parameters like 
this:

re.search(regexp, text, from_beginning=True|False) ?

In this way we prevent, as written in the documentation, people writing 
".*" in front of the regexp used with re.match()

Thanks.