Regex python attaching raw to string variables

Question

Normally you would put an r in front of the string to make it raw, but how to do this with a variable (string)?

This is what I tried so far:

import re
var = "++"
re.search(r"++", "++")      # also does not work
re.search(var, "++")        # fails
re.search(r(var), "++")     # fails
re.search(r + var, "++")    # fails
re.search("r" + var, "++")  # fails

Answer 1

Use the re.escape() function for this.

>>> import re
>>> var = "++"
>>> re.search(re.escape(var), '++')
<_sre.SRE_Match object at 0x02B36B80>