a session attached:

cheetah:~/wrk/svn/psi-poly5/poly/aut/prof> ~/comp/python/trunk/python -m pstats prof.out 
Welcome to the profile statistics browser.
% stats 20 \
Thu Jul  8 17:50:27 2010    prof.out

         197258358 function calls (197187736 primitive calls) in 321.090 CPU seconds

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/ilya/comp/python/trunk/Lib/runpy.py", line 162, in _run_module_as_main
    "__main__", fname, loader, pkg_name)
  File "/home/ilya/comp/python/trunk/Lib/runpy.py", line 72, in _run_code
    exec code in run_globals
  File "/home/ilya/comp/python/trunk/Lib/pstats.py", line 681, in <module>
    browser.cmdloop()
  File "/home/ilya/comp/python/trunk/Lib/cmd.py", line 142, in cmdloop
    stop = self.onecmd(line)
  File "/home/ilya/comp/python/trunk/Lib/cmd.py", line 219, in onecmd
    return func(arg)
  File "/home/ilya/comp/python/trunk/Lib/pstats.py", line 657, in do_stats
    return self.generic('print_stats', line)
  File "/home/ilya/comp/python/trunk/Lib/pstats.py", line 578, in generic
    getattr(self.stats, fn)(*processed)
  File "/home/ilya/comp/python/trunk/Lib/pstats.py", line 359, in print_stats
    width, list = self.get_print_list(amount)
  File "/home/ilya/comp/python/trunk/Lib/pstats.py", line 332, in get_print_list
    list, msg = self.eval_print_amount(selection, list, msg)
  File "/home/ilya/comp/python/trunk/Lib/pstats.py", line 306, in eval_print_amount
    if re.search(sel, func_std_string(func)):
  File "/home/ilya/comp/python/trunk/Lib/re.py", line 142, in search
    return _compile(pattern, flags).search(string)
  File "/home/ilya/comp/python/trunk/Lib/re.py", line 245, in _compile
    raise error, v # invalid expression
sre_constants.error: bogus escape (end of line)