No. Regular expressions in Python are handled by the re module.

article = re.sub(r'(?is)</html>.+', '</html>', article)

In general:

str_output = re.sub(regex_search_term, regex_replacement, str_input)

str.replace() ^v2|v3 does not recognize regular expressions.

To perform a substitution using a regular expression, use re.sub() ^v2|v3.

For example:

import re

line = re.sub(
           r"(?i)^.*interfaceOpDataFile.*$", 
           "interfaceOpDataFile %s" % fileIn, 
           line
       )

In a loop, it would be better to compile the regular expression first:

import re

regex = re.compile(r"^.*interfaceOpDataFile.*$", re.IGNORECASE)
for line in some_file:
    line = regex.sub("interfaceOpDataFile %s" % fileIn, line)
    # do something with the updated line

This tested snippet should do it:

import re
line = re.sub(r"</?\[\d+>", "", line)

Edit: Here's a commented version explaining how it works:

line = re.sub(r"""
  (?x) # Use free-spacing mode.
  <    # Match a literal '<'
  /?   # Optionally match a '/'
  \[   # Match a literal '['
  \d+  # Match one or more digits
  >    # Match a literal '>'
  """, "", line)

Regexes are fun! But I would strongly recommend spending an hour or two studying the basics. For starters, you need to learn which characters are special: "metacharacters" which need to be escaped (i.e. with a backslash placed in front - and the rules are different inside and outside character classes.) There is an excellent online tutorial at: www.regular-expressions.info. The time you spend there will pay for itself many times over. Happy regexing!