Message 367963 - Python tracker

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Hello. The following code hangs:

import fnmatch
fnmatch.fnmatchcase("a" * 32, "*" * 16 + "b")

Measurements show that its execution time rises exponentially with the number of asterisks. Bash and SQLite 3 process this glob instantly.

This is because "fnmatchcase" generates a regular expression with repeated dots:

(?s:.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*b)\\Z

It's equivalent to:

(?s:.*b)\\Z

But works in exponential time. So the solution is to replace multiple asterisks with a single one, so the latter regexp is generated instead.