[Tutor] re module- puzzling results when matching money

[Alex Kleider]

On 2013-08-04 00:21, Albert-Jan Roskam wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> 
>> From: Alex Kleider <akleider at sonic.net>
>> To: Albert-Jan Roskam <fomcl at yahoo.com>
>> Cc: Python Tutor <tutor at python.org>
>> Sent: Sunday, August 4, 2013 1:34 AM
>> Subject: Re: [Tutor] re module- puzzling results when matching money
>> 
>> On 2013-08-03 13:30, Albert-Jan Roskam wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>>  Word boundary.  This is a zero-width assertion that matches only at 
>>> the
>>>  beginning or end of a word.  A word is defined as a sequence of
>>>  alphanumeric
>>>  characters, so the end of a word is indicated by whitespace or a
>>>  non-alphanumeric 
>>> character.[http://docs.python.org/2/howto/regex.html]
>>>  So I think it's because a dollar sign is not an alphanumeric 
>>> character.
>> 
>> I get it now, thanks.
>> 
>> 
>>> 
>>>>>>  re.findall(r"\b\e\b", "d e f")
>>                      ^
>> I'm puzzled by the presence of the '\' character before the
>> 'e' above.
> 
> sorry, my bad. I forgot to delete that backslash, I meant
> re.findall(r"\be\b", "d e f"). Same with the other example.

..but the interesting thing is that the presence or absence of the 
spurious back slashes seems not to change the results.