What does this line do?... input_ = re.sub("([a-zA-Z]+)", '"\\1"', input_) Does it remove parentheses from words? e.g. (foo) -> foo ??? I'd like to replace [a-zA-Z] with \w but \w makes it blow up. In other words, re.sub("(\w+)", '"\\1"', input_) blows up. Why? cs