[3.11] gh-101699: Explain using Match.expand with \g<0> (GH-101701) (GH-115584)

miss-islington · Stevoisiak · serhiy-storchaka · web-flow · commit 5b6e3589133f · 2024-02-17T15:03:43.000+02:00
Update documentation for re library to explain that a backreference `\g<0>` is expanded to the entire string when using Match.expand(). Note that numeric backreferences to group 0 (`\0`) are not supported. (cherry picked from commit d2d7808) Co-authored-by: Stevoisiak <S.Vascellaro@gmail.com> Co-authored-by: Serhiy Storchaka <storchaka@gmail.com>
diff --git a/Doc/library/re.rst b/Doc/library/re.rst
@@ -1336,7 +1336,8 @@ when there is no match, you can test whether there was a match with a simple
    Escapes such as ``\n`` are converted to the appropriate characters,
    and numeric backreferences (``\1``, ``\2``) and named backreferences
    (``\g<1>``, ``\g<name>``) are replaced by the contents of the
-   corresponding group.
+   corresponding group. The backreference ``\g<0>`` will be
+   replaced by the entire match.
 
    .. versionchanged:: 3.5
       Unmatched groups are replaced with an empty string.
