How to use str.contains() with multiple expressions, in pandas dataframes?

Question

I\'m wondering if there is a more efficient way to use the str.contains() function in Pandas, to search for two partial strings at once. I want to search a given column in a

Answer 1

The is one regular expression and should be in one string:

"nt|nv"  # rather than "nt" | " nv"
f_recs[f_recs['Behavior'].str.contains("nt|nv", na=False)]

Python doesn't let you use the or (|) operator on strings:

In [1]: "nt" | "nv"
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for |: 'str' and 'str'