re.search vs re.match - key difference

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re.match() anchors implicitly to the start of the string - if the pattern does not match at position 0 it returns None immediately, without looking further. re.search() scans forward through the string until it finds a position where the pattern matches, then returns that match. A practical consequence: re.match(r'\d+', 'abc123') returns None, but re.search(r'\d+', 'abc123') returns a match for '123'. For most production code, re.search() is the safer default. Use re.match() only when you specifically need to validate that the string starts with the pattern.