Mark scribbled:
> One possible solution would be a grouptuples() function that returned
> a tuple of 3-tuples (index, name, captured_text) with the name being
> None for unnamed groups.

Hmm.  Well, that's not a bad idea at all IMHO and would, AFAICT probably 
be easier to do than (2) but I would still do (2) but will try to add 
that to one of the existing items or spawn another item for it since it 
is kind of a distinct feature.

My preference right now is to finish off the test cases for (7) because 
it is already coded, then finish the work on (1) as that was the 
original reason for modification then on to (2) then (3) as they are 
related and then I don't mind tackling (8) because I think that one 
shouldn't be too hard.  Interestingly, the existing engine code 
(sre_parse.py) has a place-holder, commented out, for character classes 
but it was never properly implemented.  And I will warn that with 
Unicode, I THINK all the character classes exist as unicode functions or 
can be implemented as multiple unicode functions, but I'm not 100% sure 
so if I run into that problem, some character classes may initially be 
left out while I work on another item.

Anyway, thanks for the input, Mark!