re.search yields incorrect result (lib* matches linux)

[justarrow]

Bug description:

re.search("lib*", "linux-generic") gets a match, running on Python 3.13.7
EDIT: re.search("linux*, ...) works as expected

from re import search

SEARCH = "lib*" 

print(search(SEARCH, "liblcms2-utils"))  # <re.Match object; span=(0, 3), match='lib'>
print(search(SEARCH, "linux-generic"))   # <re.Match object; span=(0, 2), match='li'>

CPython versions tested on:

3.13

Operating systems tested on:

Linux

[ronaldoussoren]

This is not a bug, "linux-generic" starts with li followed by 0 or more b-s, as specified by the regular expression.

[StanFromIreland]

It is not wrong, it is correct as per the documentation.

Your regex means:

'l'
'i'
0 or more 'b'

[justarrow]

Funny, it does work the other way around, re.search("linux*", ...) provides the correct result. Still suspicious this is a bug

[pochmann]

Clearly not a bug. Are you confusing regex with glob?

[justarrow]

Me, I thought regex was r"" and not plain str