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

re.match only matches the beginning of the input string to the regular expression. So this would only work for string beginning with the strings from my_list.

re.search on the other hand searches the entire string for a match to the regular expression.

import re

my_list = ['car', 'boat', 'truck']
my_other_string = 'I am on a boat'

my_list = re.compile(r'\b(?:%s)\b' % '|'.join(my_list))
if re.search(my_list, my_other_string):#changed function call here
    print('yay')

For the string "I am on a boat", re.match will fail because the beginning of the string is "I" which doesn't match the regular expression. re.search will also not match the first charecter but will instead go through the string until it gets to "boat", at which point it will have found a match.

If we instead use the string "Boat is what I am on", re.match and re.search will both match the regular expression to the string because the string now starts with a match.