How to temporarily disable smart-operator?

Question

I am using smart-operator for Python programming, and I like to use it. However I have also found it annoying for inputting:

1. regular expressions like .*
2. equals (=) in an function.

I would like to disable it by a prefix shortcut, is there any way to do this?

Answer 1

You can always type characters literally by hitting C-q first.

1. C-q . will type a dot, wherever you are.
2. C-q = will always insert a =.