[Tutor] regular expression woes ..

[Israel C. Evans]

Does anybody know why when I try...

>>> pat = re.compile('_.*' | '\..*')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#1>", line 1, in ?
    pat = re.compile('_.*' | '\..*')
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for |

I get the error that I do?
The documentation says:
"|" 
A|B, where A and B can be arbitrary REs, creates a regular expression
that will match either A or B. An arbitrary number of REs can be separated
by the "|" in this way. This can be used inside groups (see below) as
well. REs separated by "|" are tried from left to right, and the first
one that allows the complete pattern to match is considered the accepted
branch. This means that if A matches, B will never be tested, even if
it would produce a longer overall match. In other words, the "|" operator
is never greedy. To match a literal "|", use \|, or enclose it inside
a character class, as in [|]. 


It would seem to me that I'm using '|' correctly but obviously I'm not.
 I've also tried 
>>> pat1 = re.compile('_.*')
>>> pat2 = re.compile('\..*')
>>> allpat = re.compile(pat1 | pat2) 

....same error as before...
and

>>> pat = re.compile(('_.*') | ('\..*'))

Any ideas? 
Thanks,

~Israel~







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