[Python-Dev] Misc re.match() complaint

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Guido van Rossum writes:

 > And I still think that any return type for group() except bytes or str
 > is wrong. (Except possibly a subclass of these.)

I'm not sure I understand.  Do you mean in the context of the match
object API, where constructing "(target, match.start(), match.end())"
to get a group-like object that refers to the target rather than
copying the text is simple?  (Such objects are very useful in the
restricted application of constructing a programmable text editor.)

Or is this something deeper, that a group *is* a new object in
principle?