Non-special chars match themselves. Exceptions are special characters: \ Escape special char or start a sequence. . Match any char except newline, see re.DOTALL ^ Match start of the string, see re.MULTILINE $ Match end of the string, see re.MULTILINE [] Enclose a set of matchable chars R|S Match either regex R or regex S. () Create capture group, & indicate precedence After '[', enclose a set, the