How to match two lists of strings with regex in Python

Question

I have two lists of strings in Python. One of them is a list of desired strings, the other is a larger list of different strings. For example:

desired = ["cat52", "dog64"]
buf = ["horse101", "elephant5", "dog64", "mouse90", "cat52"]

I need a True/False for whether the second list contains all the strings in the first list. So far I did this with:

if all(element in buf for element in desired)

However, now I need the list of desired strings to have some regex properties. For example:

desired = ["cat52", "dog[0-9]+"]

I've looked into the re and regex python libraries but I can't figure out a statement that gives me what I want. Any help would be appreciated.

@VishalSingh thanks, I have looked into this module but I couldn't find any documentation on how it handles lists. Do you know if it can handle a list for matching/searching? — rbv
– rbv, Commented Apr 20, 2021 at 7:15
It looks to me you want to test the string match, not the regex. Am I right? — tshiono
– tshiono, Commented Apr 20, 2021 at 7:20
@tshiono sorry if I wasn't clear, I want the statement to return true if buf contains all the strings in desired. So in the above example it would return true, as buf has "cat52" and "dog64", and they match the desired list desired = ["cat52", "dog[0-9]+"] — rbv
– rbv, Commented Apr 20, 2021 at 7:24

Nick · Accepted Answer · 2021-04-20 07:23:34Z

2

You need to test whether any of the strings in buf match each regex in desired, and then return True if all of them do:

import re

buf = ["horse101", "elephant5", "dog64", "mouse90", "cat52"]
desired = ["cat52", "dog[0-9]+"]

print(all(any(re.match(d + '$', b) for b in buf) for d in desired))

Output:

True

Note that we add $ to the regex so that (for example) dog[0-9]+ will not match dog4a (adding ^ to the beginning is not necessary as re.match anchors matches to the start of the string).

answered Apr 20, 2021 at 7:23

Nick

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