使用re.compile()还有一个额外的好处，即使用re.VERBOSE向正则表达式模式添加注释

pattern = '''
hello[ ]world    # Some info on my pattern logic. [ ] to recognize space
'''

re.search(pattern, 'hello world', re.VERBOSE)

虽然这不会影响代码的运行速度，但我喜欢这样做，因为这是我注释习惯的一部分。当我想要修改代码时，我完全不喜欢花时间去记住代码背后的逻辑。

在无意中看到这里的讨论之前，我运行了这个测试。然而，在运行它之后，我想我至少会发布我的结果。

我剽窃了Jeff Friedl的“精通正则表达式”中的例子。这是在一台运行OSX 10.6 (2Ghz英特尔酷睿2双核，4GB内存)的macbook上。Python版本为2.6.1。

运行1 -使用re.compile

import re 
import time 
import fpformat
Regex1 = re.compile('^(a|b|c|d|e|f|g)+$') 
Regex2 = re.compile('^[a-g]+$')
TimesToDo = 1000
TestString = "" 
for i in range(1000):
    TestString += "abababdedfg"
StartTime = time.time() 
for i in range(TimesToDo):
    Regex1.search(TestString) 
Seconds = time.time() - StartTime 
print "Alternation takes " + fpformat.fix(Seconds,3) + " seconds"

StartTime = time.time() 
for i in range(TimesToDo):
    Regex2.search(TestString) 
Seconds = time.time() - StartTime 
print "Character Class takes " + fpformat.fix(Seconds,3) + " seconds"

Alternation takes 2.299 seconds
Character Class takes 0.107 seconds

运行2 -不使用re.compile

import re 
import time 
import fpformat

TimesToDo = 1000
TestString = "" 
for i in range(1000):
    TestString += "abababdedfg"
StartTime = time.time() 
for i in range(TimesToDo):
    re.search('^(a|b|c|d|e|f|g)+$',TestString) 
Seconds = time.time() - StartTime 
print "Alternation takes " + fpformat.fix(Seconds,3) + " seconds"

StartTime = time.time() 
for i in range(TimesToDo):
    re.search('^[a-g]+$',TestString) 
Seconds = time.time() - StartTime 
print "Character Class takes " + fpformat.fix(Seconds,3) + " seconds"

Alternation takes 2.508 seconds
Character Class takes 0.109 seconds

使用re.compile()还有一个额外的好处，即使用re.VERBOSE向正则表达式模式添加注释

pattern = '''
hello[ ]world    # Some info on my pattern logic. [ ] to recognize space
'''

re.search(pattern, 'hello world', re.VERBOSE)

虽然这不会影响代码的运行速度，但我喜欢这样做，因为这是我注释习惯的一部分。当我想要修改代码时，我完全不喜欢花时间去记住代码背后的逻辑。

除了表演。

使用compile帮助我区分的概念 1. 模块(re), 2. 正则表达式对象 3.匹配对象 当我开始学习正则表达式的时候

#regex object
regex_object = re.compile(r'[a-zA-Z]+')
#match object
match_object = regex_object.search('1.Hello')
#matching content
match_object.group()
output:
Out[60]: 'Hello'
V.S.
re.search(r'[a-zA-Z]+','1.Hello').group()
Out[61]: 'Hello'

作为补充，我做了一个详尽的备忘单模块re供您参考。

regex = {
'brackets':{'single_character': ['[]', '.', {'negate':'^'}],
            'capturing_group' : ['()','(?:)', '(?!)' '|', '\\', 'backreferences and named group'],
            'repetition'      : ['{}', '*?', '+?', '??', 'greedy v.s. lazy ?']},
'lookaround' :{'lookahead'  : ['(?=...)', '(?!...)'],
            'lookbehind' : ['(?<=...)','(?<!...)'],
            'caputuring' : ['(?P<name>...)', '(?P=name)', '(?:)'],},
'escapes':{'anchor'          : ['^', '\b', '$'],
          'non_printable'   : ['\n', '\t', '\r', '\f', '\v'],
          'shorthand'       : ['\d', '\w', '\s']},
'methods': {['search', 'match', 'findall', 'finditer'],
              ['split', 'sub']},
'match_object': ['group','groups', 'groupdict','start', 'end', 'span',]
}

我有很多运行一个编译过的正则表达式和实时编译的经验，并没有注意到任何可感知的差异。显然，这只是传闻，当然也不是反对编译的有力论据，但我发现两者之间的差异可以忽略不计。

编辑: 在快速浏览了实际的Python 2.5库代码后，我发现无论何时使用正则表达式(包括调用re.match())， Python都会在内部编译和缓存正则表达式，因此实际上只在正则表达式被编译时进行更改，并且不应该节省太多时间——只节省检查缓存所需的时间(对内部dict类型的键查找)。

来自re.py模块(评论是我的):

def match(pattern, string, flags=0):
    return _compile(pattern, flags).match(string)

def _compile(*key):

    # Does cache check at top of function
    cachekey = (type(key[0]),) + key
    p = _cache.get(cachekey)
    if p is not None: return p

    # ...
    # Does actual compilation on cache miss
    # ...

    # Caches compiled regex
    if len(_cache) >= _MAXCACHE:
        _cache.clear()
    _cache[cachekey] = p
    return p

我仍然经常预编译正则表达式，但只是为了将它们绑定到一个漂亮的、可重用的名称，而不是为了任何预期的性能提升。

下面是一个使用re.compile的示例，在请求时速度超过50倍。

这一点与我在上面的评论中所说的是一样的，即当您的使用从编译缓存中获益不多时，使用re.compile可能是一个显著的优势。这种情况至少发生在一个特定的情况下(我在实践中遇到过)，即当以下所有情况都成立时:

您有很多regex模式(不仅仅是re._MAXCACHE，它目前的默认值是512)，以及 你经常使用这些正则表达式，而且 相同模式的连续使用之间被多个re._MAXCACHE其他正则表达式分隔，因此每个正则表达式在连续使用之间从缓存中刷新。

import re
import time

def setup(N=1000):
    # Patterns 'a.*a', 'a.*b', ..., 'z.*z'
    patterns = [chr(i) + '.*' + chr(j)
                    for i in range(ord('a'), ord('z') + 1)
                    for j in range(ord('a'), ord('z') + 1)]
    # If this assertion below fails, just add more (distinct) patterns.
    # assert(re._MAXCACHE < len(patterns))
    # N strings. Increase N for larger effect.
    strings = ['abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'] * N
    return (patterns, strings)

def without_compile():
    print('Without re.compile:')
    patterns, strings = setup()
    print('searching')
    count = 0
    for s in strings:
        for pat in patterns:
            count += bool(re.search(pat, s))
    return count

def without_compile_cache_friendly():
    print('Without re.compile, cache-friendly order:')
    patterns, strings = setup()
    print('searching')
    count = 0
    for pat in patterns:
        for s in strings:
            count += bool(re.search(pat, s))
    return count

def with_compile():
    print('With re.compile:')
    patterns, strings = setup()
    print('compiling')
    compiled = [re.compile(pattern) for pattern in patterns]
    print('searching')
    count = 0
    for s in strings:
        for regex in compiled:
            count += bool(regex.search(s))
    return count

start = time.time()
print(with_compile())
d1 = time.time() - start
print(f'-- That took {d1:.2f} seconds.\n')

start = time.time()
print(without_compile_cache_friendly())
d2 = time.time() - start
print(f'-- That took {d2:.2f} seconds.\n')

start = time.time()
print(without_compile())
d3 = time.time() - start
print(f'-- That took {d3:.2f} seconds.\n')

print(f'Ratio: {d3/d1:.2f}')

我在笔记本电脑上获得的示例输出(Python 3.7.7):

With re.compile:
compiling
searching
676000
-- That took 0.33 seconds.

Without re.compile, cache-friendly order:
searching
676000
-- That took 0.67 seconds.

Without re.compile:
searching
676000
-- That took 23.54 seconds.

Ratio: 70.89

I didn't bother with timeit as the difference is so stark, but I get qualitatively similar numbers each time. Note that even without re.compile, using the same regex multiple times and moving on to the next one wasn't so bad (only about 2 times as slow as with re.compile), but in the other order (looping through many regexes), it is significantly worse, as expected. Also, increasing the cache size works too: simply setting re._MAXCACHE = len(patterns) in setup() above (of course I don't recommend doing such things in production as names with underscores are conventionally “private”) drops the ~23 seconds back down to ~0.7 seconds, which also matches our understanding.