Help with regular expression in python

[Matt Funk]

On Friday, August 19, 2011, jmfauth wrote:
> On 19 août, 19:33, Matt Funk <matze... at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The results obtained are:
> > results:
> > [(' 2.199000e+01', ' : (instance: 0)\t:\tsome description')]
> > so this matches the last number plus the string at the end of the line,
> > but no retaining the previous numbers.
> > 
> > Anyway, i think at this point i will go another route. Not sure where the
> > issues lies at this point.
> 
> Seen on this list:
> 
> And always keep this in mind:
> 'Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use
> regular expressions."  Now they have two problems.'
> --Jamie Zawinski, comp.lang.emacs
> 
> 
> I proposed a solution which seems to corresponds to your problem
> if it were better formulated...
Agreed, and i will probably take your proposed route or a similar one. 
However, i still won't know WHY it didn't work. I would really LIKE to know 
why, simply because it tickles me.

matt

> 
> jmf