Check if substring is in a list of strings?

Question

I have found some answers to this question before, but they seem to be obsolete for the current Python versions (or at least they don\'t work for me).

I want to chec

Answer 1

You can import any from __builtin__ in case it was replaced by some other any:

>>> from  __builtin__ import any as b_any
>>> lst = ['yellow', 'orange', 'red']
>>> word = "or"
>>> b_any(word in x for x in lst)
True

Note that in Python 3 __builtin__ has been renamed to builtins.

Answer 2

Also if someone wants to check if any of the values of a dictionary exists as a substring in a list of strings, can use this:

list_a = [
    'Copy of snap-009ecf9feb43d902b from us-west-2',
    'Copy of snap-0fe999422014504b6 from us-west-2',
    'Copy of snap-0fe999422014cscx504b6 from us-west-2',
    'Copy of snap-0fe999422sdad014504b6 from us-west-2'
]
dict_b = {
    '/dev/xvda': 'snap-0fe999422014504b6',
    '/dev/xvdsdsa': 'snap-sdvcsdvsdvs'
}

for b1 in dict_b.itervalues():
    result = next( ("found" for a1 in a if b1 in a1), "not found")
    print result 

It prints

not found
found

Answer 3

You could use next instead:

colors = ['yellow', 'orange', 'red'] 
search = "or"

result = next((True for color in colors if search in color), False)

print(result) # True

To show the string that contains the substring:

colors = ['yellow', 'orange', 'red'] 
search = "or"

result = [color for color in colors if search in color]  

print(result) # Orange

Answer 4

The code you posted using any() is correct and should work unless you've redefined it somewhere.

That said, there is a simple and fast solution to be had by using the substring search on a single combined string:

>>> wordlist = ['yellow','orange','red']
>>> combined = '\t'.join(wordlist)

>>> 'or' in combined
True
>>> 'der' in combined
False

This should work much faster than the approach using any. The join character can be any character that doesn't occur in one of the words in the wordlist.