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Hi, I was going to file this bug just now myself, as this
seems like a really useful feature.  For example, I've
several times wanted to split on '^' or '^(?=S)' (to split
up a data file into paragraphs that start with an initial
S).  Instead I have to do something like '\n(?=S)', which is
rather more hideous.

To answer tim_one's challenge, yes, I *do* expect splitting
by 'x*' to break a string into letters, now that I've
thought about it.  To not do so is a bizarre and surprising
behavior, IMO.  (Patient: Doctor, when I split on this
nonsense pattern I get nonsense!  Doctor: Then don't do that.)

The fix should be near this line in _sre.c, I think.

        if (state.start == state.ptr) {

I could work on a patch if you'll take it...

Mike