re.sub: escaping capture group followed by numeric(s)

[Peter Otten]

Jon Clements wrote:

> (I reckon this is probably a question for MRAB and is not really
> Python specific, but anyhow...)
> 
> Absolutely basic example: re.sub(r'(\d+)', r'\1', 'string1')
> 
> I've been searching around and I'm sure it'll be obvious when it's
> pointed out, but how do I use the above to replace 1 with 11?
> Obviously I can't use r'\11' because there is no group 11. I know I
> can use a function to do it, but it seems to me there must be a way
> without. Can I escape r'\11' somehow so that it's group 1 with a '1'
> after it (not group 11).

Quoting 

http://docs.python.org/library/re.html#re.sub

"""
In addition to character escapes and backreferences as described above, 
\g<name> will use the substring matched by the group named name, as defined 
by the (?P<name>...) syntax. \g<number> uses the corresponding group number; 
\g<2> is therefore equivalent to \2, but isn’t ambiguous in a replacement 
such as \g<2>0. \20 would be interpreted as a reference to group 20, not a 
reference to group 2 followed by the literal character '0'. The 
backreference \g<0> substitutes in the entire substring matched by the RE.
"""

Peter