imenu-generic-expression elements (confusing)

[Tim Johnson]

Hello:
What follows is an excerpt from c-h v imenu-generic-expression:
"
The value should be an alist with elements that look like this:
 (MENU-TITLE REGEXP INDEX)
or like this:
 (MENU-TITLE REGEXP INDEX FUNCTION ARGUMENTS...)
"
Now follows the value for this as local to a python file:
("\\(^[         ]*\\(class[     ]+[a-zA-Z0-9_]+\\)\\([
]*\\((\\([a-zA-Z0-9_,.  \n]\\)*)\\)?\\)[        ]*:\\)\\|\\(^[  ]*\\(def[
]+\\([a-zA-Z0-9_]+\\)[  ]*(\\([^:#]*\\))\\)[    ]*:\\)" 2 8)

I'm frankly confused.... what I see above is a sexp composed of:
1) A string that is a regexp (appears to properly identify
   python code as I would expect)
2) an integer
3) another integer

My impression is that the buffer-local value of the variable is
very different from what the documentation says it should be.
Can anyone comment on this?

Thanks
tim

-- 
Tim Johnson <tim@johnsons-web.com>
      http://www.alaska-internet-solutions.com