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One thing I don't understand is what does _* mean? It seems like the paper refers to .* (which I understand) and _* (which I don't) in sometimes the same context? Normally _* would mean "an underscore zero or more times".

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That's noted further down the page:

- `_*` = any string

I guess _ is trying to be like, "No, really, anything," while . has some limitations?

.* does NOT match newlines, so always will stop a match at the end of a line.

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