Python's new regex module supports fuzzy string matching. Sing praises aloud (now).

Per the docs:

The ENHANCEMATCH flag makes fuzzy matching attempt to improve the fitof the next match that it finds.

The BESTMATCH flag makes fuzzy matching search for the best matchinstead of the next match

The ENHANCEMATCH flag is set using (?e) as in

regex.search("(?e)(dog){e<=1}", "cat and dog")[1] returns "dog"

but there's nothing on actually setting the BESTMATCH flag. How's it done?

Documentation on the BESTMATCH flag functionality is partial (but improving). Poke-n-hope shows that BESTMATCH is set using (?b).

>>> import regex
>>> regex.search(r"(?e)(?:hello){e<=4}", "What did you say, oh - hello")[0]
'hat d'
>>> regex.search(r"(?b)(?:hello){e<=4}", "What did you say, oh - hello")[0]
'hello'