Python and regexp efficiency.. again.. :)

[Patrick Tufts]

In article <al8n1rj6tgv.fsf at sirppi.helsinki.fi>, Markus Stenberg
<mstenber at cc.Helsinki.FI> wrote:

> One order of magnitude optimization gain was received by writing
> a specialized regexp optimization tool - as the regexps are mostly
> of type
> 
>                 ^commonstringuniquetail
>                 ^commonstringanothertail

Depending on how many different extensions there are to commonstring,
you might do better with the regexp:

   ^commonstring(.*)

and then matching the saved pattern (.*) against a dictionary of
possible extensions.

--Pat