docs: def match(string, patterns):
      """Given a string return true if it matches the supplied list of
      patterns.
  
      Parameters
      ----------
      string : str
          The string to be matched.
      patterns : None or [pattern, ...]
          The series of regular expressions to attempt to match.
      """
      if patterns is None:
          return True
      else:
          return any(re.match(pattern, string)
                     for pattern in patterns)