Matching strings with re.match doesn't work

Question

From this link I used the following code:

my_other_string = \'the_boat_has_sunk\'
my_list = [\'car\', \'boat\', \'truck\']
my_list = re.compile(r\'\\b(?:%s)\         


        

Answer 1

This is not a regular sentence where words are joined with an underscore. Since you are just checking if the word is present, you may either remove \b (as it is matching on a word boundary and _ is a word character!) or add alternatives:

import re
my_other_string = 'the_boat_has_sunk'
my_list = ['car', 'boat', 'truck']
my_list = re.compile(r'(?:\b|_)(?:%s)(?=\b|_)' % '|'.join(my_list))
if re.search(my_list, my_other_string):
    print('yay')

See IDEONE demo

EDIT:

Since you say it has to be true if one of the words in the list is in the string, not only as a separate word, but it musn't match if for example boathouse is in the string, I suggest first replacing non-word characters and _ with space, and then using the regex you had with \b:

import re
my_other_string = 'the_boathouse_has_sunk'
my_list = ['car', 'boat', 'truck']
my_other_string = re.sub(r'[\W_]', ' ', my_other_string)
my_list = re.compile(r'\b(?:%s)\b' % '|'.join(my_list))
if re.search(my_list, my_other_string):
    print('yay')

This will not print yay, but if you remove house, it will.

See IDEONE Demo 2