matching strings in list against strings python

Question

Say I have a list match = ['one', 'two', 'three']

and I have a list of arguments foo = ['something', 'something_two', 'something', (...)]

I want to only do an operation on the item if it matches any of the items in the match list:

for each in foo:
    for match_item in match:
        if match_item not in each:
            no_match = True
            break
    if no_match:
        break
    # do the desired operations

But I don't know how to make it so that it doesn't fail the match when 'something_two' comes up against 'one' and breaks all of the loops. The items in match will be only a part of the whole string in the items of foo, that's why I was looping through the list of items in match.

What would be a good way of approaching this?

Can't you just do if each in match: # do desired op ?

Chris_Rands
– Chris_Rands

2016-08-12 18:22:21 +00:00
Commented Aug 12, 2016 at 18:22 — Chris_Rands
– Chris_Rands, Commented Aug 12, 2016 at 18:22

Haris · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-12 18:32:22Z

1

The simplest way I can think of is

for item in foo:
    if item in match:
        # do desired operations

or if you want to do the operations on the list itself

for i in range(len(foo)):
    if foo[i] in match:
        # do desired operation on foo[i]

answered Aug 12, 2016 at 18:32

Haris

12.3k6 gold badges48 silver badges75 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

Arturo · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-12 22:33:56Z

1

You can reduce the list by using a generator expression with a condition:

for each in (item for item in foo if item in match):
    # do the desired operations

or by using filter function:

for each in filter(lambda item: item in match, foo):
    # do the desired operations

edited Aug 12, 2016 at 22:33

Arturo

1711 silver badge18 bronze badges

answered Aug 12, 2016 at 18:27

Stellar Pulse

112 bronze badges

1 Comment

Arturo Over a year ago

Will the first method work if item contains more characters than the ones in match[0] ? say that each = 'something_one' and match is only 'one' I can't seem to make it work

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

matching strings in list against strings python

2 Answers 2

Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related