Is it worth using Python's re.compile?

Question

Is there any benefit in using compile for regular expressions in Python?

h = re.compile(\'hello\')
h.match(\'hello world\')

vs

Answer 1

In general, I find it is easier to use flags (at least easier to remember how), like re.I when compiling patterns than to use flags inline.

>>> foo_pat = re.compile('foo',re.I)
>>> foo_pat.findall('some string FoO bar')
['FoO']

vs

>>> re.findall('(?i)foo','some string FoO bar')
['FoO']