Retrieve the string used to define a regex pattern

Question

Let's consider the variable pattern = re.compile(r"\w+"). Is there a way to retreive the string r"\w+" used to define pattern ?

Answer 1

Well, if we look at the docs, we see that regex objects have the attribute:

regex.pattern

The pattern string from which the RE object was compiled.

Answer 2

Yes -- pattern.pattern:

pattern = re.compile(r"\w+")
>>> pattern.pattern
'\\w+'