Python regex doesn't work as I expected

Question

Why doesn't this work?!

re.match(r".*hello.*", "\n\nhello\n\n", re.MULTILINE)

Help please?

Windows 7 x64 Python 2.7.3

Answer 1

You are looking for re.DOTALL instead:

re.match(r".*hello.*", "\n\nhello\n\n", re.DOTALL)

Quoting the documentation:

Make the '.' special character match any character at all, including a newline; without this flag, '.' will match anything except a newline.

re.MULTILINE alters where ^ and $ match, not what the . dot pattern matches.