Python's re module and genealogy problem

From	BrJohan <brjohan@gmail.com>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.python
Subject	Python's re module and genealogy problem
Date	2014-06-11 14:23 +0200
Message-ID	<bvr01iFu926U1@mid.individual.net> (permalink)

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For some genealogical purposes I consider using Python's re module.

Rather many names can be spelled in a number of similar ways, and in 
order to match names even if they are spelled differently, I will build 
regular expressions, each of which is supposed to match  a number of 
similar names.

I guess that there will be a few hundred such regular expressions 
covering most popular names.

Now, my problem: Is there a way to decide whether any two - or more - of 
those regular expressions will match the same string?

Or, stated a little differently:

Can it, for a pair of regular expressions be decided whether at least 
one string matching both of those regular expressions, can be constructed?

If it is possible to make such a decision, then how? Anyone aware of an 
algorithm for this?

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Python's re module and genealogy problem BrJohan <brjohan@gmail.com> - 2014-06-11 14:23 +0200
  Re: Python's re module and genealogy problem Robert Kern <robert.kern@gmail.com> - 2014-06-11 14:26 +0100
    Re: Python's re module and genealogy problem Mark H Harris <harrismh777@gmail.com> - 2014-06-11 09:08 -0500
  Re: Python's re module and genealogy problem Thomas Rachel <nutznetz-0c1b6768-bfa9-48d5-a470-7603bd3aa915@spamschutz.glglgl.de> - 2014-06-11 15:55 +0200
  Re: Python's re module and genealogy problem Michael Torrie <torriem@gmail.com> - 2014-06-11 09:34 -0600
  Re: Python's re module and genealogy problem Nick Cash <nick.cash@npcinternational.com> - 2014-06-11 16:21 +0000
  Re: Python's re module and genealogy problem Simon Ward <simon@bleah.co.uk> - 2014-06-11 18:21 +0100
  Re: Python's re module and genealogy problem Vlastimil Brom <vlastimil.brom@gmail.com> - 2014-06-11 20:09 +0200
  Re: Python's re module and genealogy problem BrJohan <brjohan@gmail.com> - 2014-06-13 17:17 +0200
    Re: Python's re module and genealogy problem Peter Otten <__peter__@web.de> - 2014-06-13 18:26 +0200
    Re: Python's re module and genealogy problem Dan Sommers <dan@tombstonezero.net> - 2014-06-14 05:14 +0000
  Re: Python's re module and genealogy problem Tony the Tiger <tony@tiger.invalid> - 2014-06-14 08:35 +0000

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