Python/Pandas: How to Match List of Strings with a DataFrame column

Question

I want to compare two columnn -- Description and Employer. I want to see if any keywords in Employer are found in the Descriptio

Answer 1

Here is a readable solution using an individual search_func:

def search_func(row):
    matches = [test_value in row["Description"].lower() 
               for test_value in row["Text_Search"]]

    if any(matches):
        return "Yes"
    else:
        return "No"

This function is then applied row-wise:

# create example data
df = pd.DataFrame({"Description": ["CANSEL SURVEY E PAY", "JX154 TFR?FR xxx8690"],
                   "Employer": ["Cansel Survey Equipment", "Cansel Survey Equipment"]})

print(df)
    Description             Employer
0   CANSEL SURVEY E PAY     Cansel Survey Equipment
1   JX154 TFR?FR xxx8690    Cansel Survey Equipment

# create text searches and match column
df["Text_Search"] = df["Employer"].str.lower().str.split()
df["Match"] = df.apply(search_func, axis=1)

# show result
print(df)
    Description             Employer                    Text_Search                     Match
0   CANSEL SURVEY E PAY     Cansel Survey Equipment     [cansel, survey, equipment]     Yes
1   JX154 TFR?FR xxx8690    Cansel Survey Equipment     [cansel, survey, equipment]     No