call the function re.compile with an argument string "^\s*trans\s+((?:"[^"]*?")|(?:'[^']*?'))(\s+.*context\s+((?:"[^"]*?")|(?:'[^']*?')))?\s*", substitute the result for inline_re.
inline_re = re . compile ( r"""^\s*trans\s+((?:"[^"]*?")|(?:'[^']*?'))(\s+.*context\s+((?:"[^"]*?")|(?:'[^']*?')))?\s*""" )