Is there a simple way to switch between using and ignoring metacharacters in Python regular expressions?

Question

Is there a way of toggling the compilation or use of metacharacters when compiling regexes? The current code looks like this:

Current code:

import re

the_value  = '192.168.1.1'
the_regex  = re.compile(the_value)

my_collection = ['192a168b1c1', '192.168.1.1']

my_collection.find_matching(the_regex)

result = ['192a168b1c1', '192.168.1.1']

The ideal solution would look like:

import re

the_value  = '192.168.1.1'
the_regex  = re.compile(the_value, use_metacharacters=False)

my_collection = ['192a168b1c1', '192.168.1.1']

my_collection.find_matching(the_regex)

result = ['192.168.1.1']

The ideal solution would let the re library handle the disabling of metacharacters, to avoid having to get involved in the process as much as possible.

Answer 1

Nope. However:

the_regex  = re.compile(re.escape(the_value))