Greedy vs. Lazy

When to use .* or .*? in your regex:

Greedy: .* (Matches as much as possible)
Lazy: .*? (Matches as little as possible)

Example:

                import re

# Greedy
pattern = re.compile(r'\d+')
s = '123456'
match = pattern.match(s)
if match:
    print(match.group())

# Lazy
pattern = re.compile(r'\d+')
s = '123456'
match = pattern.search(s)
if match:
    print(match.group())

More info: More Greedy than Lazy