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From: Roy Smith <roy@panix.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
Subject: Re: How to decipher :re.split(r"(\(\([^)]+\)\))" in the example
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2014 22:18:27 -0400
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In article <mailman.11746.1405042179.18130.python-list@python.org>,
 Cameron Simpson <cs@zip.com.au> wrote:

> Outside this are \( and \): these are literal opening and closing bracket 
> characters. So:
> 
>    \(\([^)]+\)\)
>          Two opening brackets, then at least one character which is not a 
>          closing bracket, then two closing brackets.

This is a perfectly OK way to write this, but personally I find my eyes 
start to glaze over whenever I see things like \(\(, so I would probably 
have written it as \({2}.  I find that a little easier to read.  So, for 
the whole thing up to this point:

     \({2}[^)]+\){2}

although, even better would be to use to utterly awesome re.VERBOSE 
flag, and write it as:

     \({2} [^)]+ \){2}