[Python-Dev] Arguments of MatchObject in re module (original) (raw)

MRAB google at mrabarnett.plus.com
Tue May 26 01:50:58 CEST 2009


I've just noticed an oddity of the re module while looking at the sources. I'll illustrate it below:

import re p = re.compile("foo") help(p.match) Help on built-in function match:

match(...) match(string[, pos[, endpos]]) --> match object or None. Matches zero or more characters at the beginning of the string

p.match(string="foo")

Traceback (most recent call last): File "<pyshell#8>", line 1, in p.match(string="foo") TypeError: Required argument 'pattern' (pos 1) not found

The name of the first argument should be "string", yet it's "pattern". Does anyone know if it's anything other than a mistake? Should it be fixed in the next version of the re module, or are we just stuck with it (and should just change the docstring to match)?



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