Terry J. Reedy <[email protected]> added the comment:
Pending further information, I believe that expecting '{1, 4}' to be
interpreted as an re quantifier involves two mental errors: a) thinking that
the domain specific re language allows optional whitespace and b) thinking that
'{' is a special character only used for quantifier patterns. I propose
changes directed at both errors.
In Python code, a space ' ' is always special (indent, required separator,
optional separator) except in comments and strings. In the latter, a space is
ordinary except as seen otherwise by reader, including humans. Functions that
read a string as Python code make them special again. AFAIK, re functions
always see spaces as ordinary unless the re.VERBOSE compile flag is passed, and
even then they are only sometimes ignored.
Suggestion 1. Because this is contrary to human habit, put a special disclaimer
at the end of the 2-sentence paragraph beginning "Some characters, like '|' or
'(', are special." Add something like "Space ' ' is always ordinary, like 'c'
is. Do not put one where a 'c' could not go."
"The special characters are:" is misleading because the special bracketed
quantifier patterns that follow are composed of ordinary characters. (See
below.)
Suggestion 2. Add 'and patterns' after 'characters'. Or put the quantifier
patterns after a separate header.
'[' is special in that it always begins a set pattern. ']' is always special
when preceded by '['. It is an error if the set is not closed with ']'. In
particular, compile('[') raises.
'{' and }' are different. They are not special by themselves anymore than
digits and ',' are, whereas within quantifier patterns, all characters, not
just '{' and '}', have special interpretations. In particular, compile('{')
matches instead of raising like '[' does.
>>> re.findall('{', 'a{b')
['{']
Only a complete quantifier pattern is special. As near as I can tell,
re.compile act at least as if it tries to match '{\d*(,\d*)?}' (with re.ASCII
flag to only allow ascii digits?) when it encounters '{'. If this fails, it
continues with '{' treated as ordinary. So '{1, 4}', '{1,c4}', '{ 1,4}',
'{1,4x}', and '{0x33}' are all compiled as sequences of 6 ordinary characters
that match themselves.
Suggestion 3. Somewhere say that '{' and '}' are ordinary unless there is a
complete quantifier match, with nothing but digits[,digits] between '{}', with
nothing else, including ' ', added.
---
Turning '{' into a special character by making it an error when it does not
begin a quantifier would break all intentional uses of '{' as ordinary. I
don't see making '{' sort-of special by sometimes raising and sometime not by a
new special rule to be much better. In particular, I don't like having only
extra ' 's or other whitespace raise. AFAIK, re is unforgiving of any extra
chars, not just spaces.
The re.VERBOSE causes whitespace to be sometimes be ignored. The list of
situations when not ignored does not, to me, obviously include quantifiers.
But it should.
>>> re.findall("""d{1,4}""", 'dddd', re.X)
['dddd']
>>> re.findall("""d{1, 4}""", 'dddd', re.X)
[]
Suggestion 4. Say so, by adding 'or quantifier' after 'character class'
----------
nosy: +serhiy.storchaka, terry.reedy
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Python tracker <[email protected]>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue42469>
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