title: python regular expression matching anything
body: <p>My regular expression isnt doing anything to my string.</p>
  
  <p>python</p>
  
  <pre><code>data = 'random\n&lt;article stuff\n&lt;/article&gt;random stuff'
  datareg = re.sub(r'.*&lt;article(.*)&lt;/article&gt;.*', r'&lt;article\1&lt;/article&gt;', data, flags=re.MULTILINE)
  print datareg
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>i get</p>
  
  <pre><code>random
  &lt;article stuff
  &lt;/article&gt;random stuff
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>i want</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;article stuff
  &lt;/article&gt;
  </code></pre>