When using re patterns of the form 'A|B|C|...' the docs seem to suggest that once any of A,B,C.. match, it is captured and no further patterns are tried. But I am seeing,
st=' Id Name Prov Type CopyOf BsId Rd -Detailed_State- Adm Snp Usr VSize' p='Type *' re.search(p,st).group() 'Type ' p='Type *| *Type' re.search(p,st).group() ' Type' Shouldn’t the second search return the same as the first, if further patterns are not tried? The documentation appears to suggest the first match should be returned, or am I misunderstanding? '|' 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. To match a literal '|', use \|, or enclose it inside a character class, as in [|]. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
