Python: Check For Partial Match Of Strings Between Two Lists

I have a two lists as shown below: c = ['John', 'query 989877 forcast', 'Tamm'] isl = ['My name is Anne Query 989877', 'John', 'Tamm Ju'] I want to check every item in isl with ev

Solution 1:

Perhaps something like this:

defget_sub_strings(s):
    words = s.split()
    for i in xrange(1, len(words)+1):      #reverse the order herefor n in xrange(0, len(words)+1-i):
            yield' '.join(words[n:n+i])
... >>> out = []
>>> for word in c:
    for sub in get_sub_strings(word.lower()):
        for s in isl:
            if sub in s.lower():
                out.append(sub)
... >>> out
['john', 'query', '989877', 'query 989877', 'tamm']

If you want to store only the biggest match only then you need to generate the sub-strings in reverse order and break as soon a match is found in isl:

def get_sub_strings(s):
    words = s.split()
    for i in xrange(len(words)+1, 0, -1):
        for n in xrange(0, len(words)+1-i):
            yield ' '.join(words[n:n+i])

out = []
for word in c:
    for sub in get_sub_strings(word.lower()):
        if any(sub in s.lower() for s in isl):
            out.append(sub)
            break

print out
#['john', 'query 989877', 'tamm']

Solution 2:

Alright I have come up with this! An extremely hacky way to do it; I don't like the method myself but it gives me my output:

Step1:
in: c1 = []
    for r in c:
       c1.append(r.split()) 
out: c1 = [['John'], ['query', '989877', 'forcast'], ['Tamm']]


Step2:
in: p = []
    for w in isl:
        for word in c1:
            for w1 in word:
                 if w1.lower() in w.lower():
                         p.append(w1)
out: p = ['query', '989877', 'John', 'Tamm']


Step3:
in: out= []
    for word in c:
        t = []
        for i in p:
             if i in word:
                t.append(i)
        out.append(t)
out: out= [['John'], ['query', '989877'], ['Tamm']]

Step4:
in: out_final = []
    for i inout:
        out_final.append(" ".join(e for e in i))
out: out_final = ['John', 'query 989877', 'Tamm']