[Tutor] re matching

[Michael Montagne]

I'm trying to quickly parse some errors out of mail.log.  
Well, ok, the quickly part is already a lost cause.
Here is my program:

import re
fname="/home/montagne/mail.log.0"
pattern=".*Abandoning.*"
logfile=open(fname,"r")
badlist=[]
cnt=1
maxcnt=200
loglines=logfile.readlines()
logfile.close() 
for line in loglines:
    if cnt > maxcnt:
        break
    #print line
    omatch=re.search(pattern,line)
    if omatch:
        sDate=line.split("]:")[0]
        sDate=sDate + "]"
        print sDate
        badlist=badlist + [sDate]
    cnt=cnt + 1
   
print str(len(badlist)) + " bad things"
for line in badlist:
    line1=line.replace(":","\\\\:")
    line2=line1.replace("]","\\\\]")
    line3=line2.replace("[","\\\\[")
    pattern=line3
    print pattern
    cnt=0
    for line in loglines:
        if cnt > maxcnt:
            break
        p=re.compile(pattern)
        omatch=p.match(line)
       
        if omatch:
            #sOutstring=line[88:]
            sOutstring=line
            print sOutstring
        cnt = cnt + 1
print "Done" 

It should make a list of strings representing lines with the word "Abandoning" on them.  Then for each of those strings, look through the same list of strings for those matching the string.  But I can not generate a match as I cycle through badlist.  If I plug the strings into the IDLE python shell, they appear to work.  
I must be missing something.