Ok, with everyone at least noticing that regular expressions are hard, if not actively complaining about it (including apparently Larry wall), maybe it's time to add a second pattern matching library - one that's more pythonic? There are any number of languages with readable pattern matching - Icon, Snobol and REXX all come to my mind. Searching pypi for "snobol" reveals two snobol string matching libraries, and I found one on the web based on icon. Possibly we should investigate adding one of those to the standard library, along with a cross-reference from the regexp documentation? <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/consulting.html Independent Software developer/SCM consultant, email for more information. O< ascii ribbon campaign - stop html mail - www.asciiribbon.org