Matthew Barnett added the comment: I've attached fnmatch_implementation.py, which is a simple pure-Python implementation of the fnmatch function. It's not as susceptible to catastrophic backtracking as the current re-based one. For example: fnmatch('a' * 50, '*a*' * 50) completes quickly. ---------- nosy: +mrabarnett Added file: http://bugs.python.org/file29343/fnmatch_implementation.py _______________________________________ Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org> <http://bugs.python.org/issue8402> _______________________________________