howto combine regex special sequences?

[Laura Creighton]

> Greetings,
> 
> I'm trying to compile a regex so that I can test whether a string
> contains characters other than alphanumeric or whitespace.
> 
> I'm currently using this which seems to work:
> 
>   regex = re.compile(r'[^a-zA-Z0-9_ \t\n\r\f\v]')
> 
> I'd like to use the special sequences "\W" and "\S" for brevity
> however.  How can I rewrite the above regex using them instead?
> 
> I thought the following would work, but it doesn't:
> 
>   regex = re.compile(r'\W\S')
> 
> Another question: is there an easier/faster way to test whether a
> string contains characters other than alphanumeric or whitespace
> without using the re module, or am I on the right track?
> 

I've been up for 36 hours, but the expression you are looking for is
 r = re.compile('[^\w\s]')

But you don't want to do that.  Z is the last letter of the alphabet 
in New Zealand, but Ö is the last letter here in Sweden.  Use the
string methods instead.

Laura Creighton