searching string, exclude certain substrings

Question

I am searching a string [email protected] for 108352, this should return true. However if I search for a substring of this it should not return true. Eg if I searched for 08352, this is missing the 1 so that would be false. How should I accomplish this?

I was searching like this:

for item in parse:          
            if element in item:

where element is 08352 and parse is several strings in a list. This is returning the positives I don't want.

perhaps I should look for a pattern? After each string I search for is a @ I notice, also before each one is a 0. So perhaps a regex? And somehow incorporate it into my for and if?

Edit: what if I prepend "00" to the search string and add @ at the end? Like:

if "00"+access_point_id+"@" in item:

Yes, looks like you need a regex. The re module has everything you need. — Lev Levitsky
– Lev Levitsky, Commented May 24, 2013 at 12:32
Using the leading zero as a marker wouldn't work as that would erroneously match substrings that are preceded by a zero in the target number. For your example e.g. 8352. Is the number you're after always in that block preceded by multiple zeros and the '-'? — mfitzp
– mfitzp, Commented May 24, 2013 at 12:33
it is always 0 to n 0's and then a -. I think it is a safe bet that it will be multiple 0's. — Paul
– Paul, Commented May 24, 2013 at 12:36

Thomas Jung · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-24 12:43:38Z

1

A simple infix search should suffice:

found = ("0%s@" % element) in item

a regular expression like -0+(\d+)@ is safer, though:

m = re.search(r"-0+(\d+)@", item)
found = m and m.group(1) == element

edited May 24, 2013 at 12:43

answered May 24, 2013 at 12:37

Thomas Jung

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Janne Karila · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-24 12:56:13Z

1

If you are looking for a string of 10 digits, you can add padding to the string you search for:

>>> '{:0>10}'.format('08352')
'0000008352'
>>> '-{:0>10}@'.format('08352')
'-0000008352@'

answered May 24, 2013 at 12:56

Janne Karila

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