newbie regexp question

[Fredrik Lundh]

mindlace <mindlace at imeme.net> wrote:
> I've got a re.compile('\W') that I can use to search for non-alphanumeric
> characters in a variable.  However, if the variable has ( in it, for
example,
> the search breaks.

breaks?

> is there a quoted_var = string.quote(somevar) or similar? Do I want to
> use string.maketrans(somevar, quoted_var) ?

have no idea what you're talking about here, but maybe
re.escape does what you wants?

>>> import re
>>> print re.escape.__doc__
Escape all non-alphanumeric characters in pattern.
>>> print re.escape("(")
\(

</F>