Aha ! Yes, I see, it is the extra '.' - this test now works :


$ cat test.py

import os
import sys
import re

pat = r'''d.........   # It is a directory.
          [+.@]?
          \s+\d+       # It has some number of links.
          [^/]*        # Skip user, group, size, and date.
          /\.          # and end with the name of the file.
       '''
str = 'drwxr-xr-x. 25 root root 4096 Apr 20 15:28 /.'
if re.match(pat, str, re.VERBOSE) :
   print "MATCHED\n"
else :
   print "DID NOT MATCH"

[ root@jvdspc:/mnt/sda3/Python-2.7 11:19:30 1758:1251 ]
$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd` LD_PRELINK=`pwd`/libpython2.7.so.1.0 ./python ./test.py
MATCHED


I still think that RE belongs in a 'test_re' script, not in the
'test_commands' script - this whole series of issues could have
been avoided if the programmer had refrained from "showing off"
their RE prowess for no purpose here and just used a simple RE
like '^.*/\.$' .