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GH-98906 re module: search() vs. match() section should mention fullmatch() #98916

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18 changes: 12 additions & 6 deletions Doc/library/re.rst
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -1565,16 +1565,22 @@ search() vs. match()

.. sectionauthor:: Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake@acm.org>

Python offers two different primitive operations based on regular expressions:
:func:`re.match` checks for a match only at the beginning of the string, while
:func:`re.search` checks for a match anywhere in the string (this is what Perl
does by default).
Python offers different primitive operations based on regular expressions:

+ :func:`re.match` checks for a match only at the beginning of the string
+ :func:`re.search` checks for a match anywhere in the string
(this is what Perl does by default)
+ :func:`re.fullmatch` checks for entire string to be a match


For example::

>>> re.match("c", "abcdef") # No match
>>> re.search("c", "abcdef") # Match
<re.Match object; span=(2, 3), match='c'>
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>>> re.fullmatch("p.*n", "python") # Match
<re.Match object; span=(0, 6), match='python'>
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>>> re.fullmatch("r.*n", "python") # No match

Regular expressions beginning with ``'^'`` can be used with :func:`search` to
restrict the match at the beginning of the string::
Expand All @@ -1588,8 +1594,8 @@ Note however that in :const:`MULTILINE` mode :func:`match` only matches at the
beginning of the string, whereas using :func:`search` with a regular expression
beginning with ``'^'`` will match at the beginning of each line. ::

>>> re.match('X', 'A\nB\nX', re.MULTILINE) # No match
>>> re.search('^X', 'A\nB\nX', re.MULTILINE) # Match
>>> re.match("X", "A\nB\nX", re.MULTILINE) # No match
>>> re.search("^X", "A\nB\nX", re.MULTILINE) # Match
<re.Match object; span=(4, 5), match='X'>


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