Why re.match()?

[MRAB]

Carl Banks wrote:
> On Jul 1, 10:56 am, kj <no.em... at please.post> wrote:
>> For a recovering Perl-head like me it is difficult to understand
>> why Python's re module offers both match and search.  Why not just
>> use search with a beginning-of-string anchor?  I find it particularly
>> puzzling because I have this (possibly mistaken) idea that the
>> Python design philosophy tends towards minimalism, a sort of Occam's
>> razor, when it comes to language entities; i.e. having re.match
>> along with re.search seems to me like an "unnecessary multiplication
>> of entities".  What am I missing?
> 
> It always seemed redundant to me also (notwithstanding Duncan Booth's
> explanation of slight semantic differences).  However, I find myself
> using re.match much more often than re.search, so perhaps in this case
> a "second obvious way" is justified.
> 
re.match is anchored at a certain position, whereas re.search isn't. The
re module doesn't support Perl's \G anchor.