Python string search key word - Exception has occurred: TypeError 'in <string>' requires string as left operand, not list

Question

I am sure this is easy

I have a function that I would like to check a block of text from an rss feed's description. The text is returned as a sting, in this example it is article_description, I then want to check the string for any of the words in my list in this example called detect.

At the moment this is just returning False

def test(article_description):
    detect = ['would','you','scale']

    text = article_description.split()
    print (text)
    print(type(text))
    print(detect)
    if detect in text: 
        print ('Success')
    else:
        print ('False')

def main():
    article_description = 'This is my text with the word scale in it.'

    test(article_description)

if (__name__ == '__main__'):
    main()

I had started with this function below but that returns Exception has occurred: TypeError 'in ' requires string as left operand, not list

def test(article_description):
    word = ['would','you','scale']
    if word in article_description: 
        print ('success')

Lemon.py · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-19 10:32:00Z

2

You are checking if the list is in the string. You could loop over the items in the list and compare the values to the string itself. The code below will loop over each item in the list and check if it is in the string and will print the result.

def test(article_description):
    detect = ['would','you','scale']

    text = article_description.split()

    for i in detect:
        if i in text: 
            print ('Success')
        else:
            print ('False')

def main():
    article_description = 'This is my text with the word scale in it.'

    test(article_description)

if (__name__ == '__main__'):
    main()

answered Apr 19, 2020 at 10:32

Lemon.py

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Comments

Gabio · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-19 10:35:29Z

2

You use in operator, which can be used to search a string in a collection or string in string.

In your case, detect is not a string so you can use it.

Try this code instead:

def test(article_description):
    detect = ['would','you','scale']
    text = article_description.split()
    is_success = any([d in text for d in detect])
    print("success" if is_success else "False")

Here, any will return True if at least one of the words of detect exists in the text.

answered Apr 19, 2020 at 10:35

Gabio

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Comments

Cblopez · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-19 10:36:58Z

1

The correct syntax is str in list, you are writing list in str. Change:

if detect in text:

With:

if text in detect:

answered Apr 19, 2020 at 10:36

Cblopez

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