janzert added the comment: The documentation on the | operator in the re module pretty explicitly covers this. http://docs.python.org/2/library/re.html
"A|B, where A and B can be arbitrary REs, creates a regular expression that will match either A or B. An arbitrary number of REs can be separated by the '|' in this way. This can be used inside groups (see below) as well. As the target string is scanned, REs separated by '|' are tried from left to right. When one pattern completely matches, that branch is accepted. This means that once A matches, B will not be tested further, even if it would produce a longer overall match. In other words, the '|' operator is never greedy." ---------- nosy: +janzert _______________________________________ Python tracker <rep...@bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue19055> _______________________________________ _______________________________________________ Python-bugs-list mailing list Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-bugs-list/archive%40mail-archive.com