title: What does the "r" in pythons re.compile(r' pattern flags') mean?
body: <p>I am reading through <a href="http://docs.python.org/2/library/re.html">http://docs.python.org/2/library/re.html</a>. According to this  the "r" in pythons re.compile(<strong>r</strong>' pattern flags') refers the raw string notation :</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>The solution is to use Python’s raw string notation for regular
    expression patterns; backslashes are not handled in any special way in
    a string literal prefixed with 'r'. So r"\n" is a two-character string
    containing '\' and 'n', while "\n" is a one-character string
    containing a newline. Usually patterns will be expressed in Python
    code using this raw string notation.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Would it be fair to say then that:</p>
  
  <p>re.compile(<strong>r</strong> pattern) means that "pattern" is a regex while, re.compile(pattern) means that "pattern" is an exact match? </p>