Dynamically conditionally formatting text - if word in list

Question

I have a flask app that returns a template with dynamically generated text. I want to bold specific words in the text variable based on a list variable that is also dynamically generated.

Lets say my two variables are as below

text = "Stephen went to the park on Tuesday with Sarah.
        Stephen couldn't go to my birthday party."

list=['Stephen', 'Sarah', 'Tuesday']

desired html output: Stephen went to the park on Tuesday with Sarah. Stephen couldn't go to my birthday party.

Im stumped with how to approach a problem like this, any help or direction will be much appreciated.

Edit: Python code

return render_template('results.html', ctext=boldened_text)

Html code

<h6>Your Text was</h6>
<div class="alert alert-info" role="alert"><p>{{ctext}}</p></div>

So you want to *replace* "Stephen" with "Stephen " in a *string*? — Andrew Allen, May 12 '19 at 17:29
Yes, any instances of words in my list variable will need bold formatting in HTML text output — BadKarma1122, May 12 '19 at 17:31
See [this](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3206344/passing-html-to-template-using-flask-jinja2) post for how to render the html. `Markup` looks best option — Andrew Allen, May 12 '19 at 17:49

Manuel · Answer 1 · 2019-05-12T17:43:55.813

1

# Loop over all words
for word in list:
  # replace the word by bold tags with the word in between
  text = text.replace(word, '<b>%s</b>' % word)

edited May 12 '19 at 17:43

answered May 12 '19 at 17:31

Manuel

534
3
9

not necessarily searching for names, but any words in the list e.x. Tuesday – BadKarma1122 May 12 '19 at 17:33
`name` is just a variable, you could use `word` instead – Andrew Allen May 12 '19 at 17:37
1

Edit: Ahh, you got me. I havn't been reading till the 3. element of the list;-) – Manuel May 12 '19 at 17:45

Malekai · Accepted Answer · 2019-05-12T18:01:52.093

For finer control, I'd advise using a for loop (simplified as a list comprehension in this example):

text = "Stephen went to the park on Tuesday with Sarah. Stephen couldn't go to my birthday party."

filter_list = ['Stephen', 'Sarah', 'Tuesday']

boldened = " ".join(["<b>{}</b>".format(word) if word.strip() in filter_list else word for word in text.split(" ")])

To see what this outputs use:

print(boldened)

Expected output:

"<b>Stephen</b> went to the park on <b>Tuesday</b> with Sarah. <b>Stephen</b> couldn't go to my birthday party."

NOTE: remember that in Python list is a type, don't use it as an identifier for variables.

Also, you're getting the <b> tags printed as plain text because you're not rendering your ctext variable as HTML, write this instead:

{{ ctext | safe }}

WARNING: only use safe with strings that you're absolutely sure are actually safe!

Good luck.

It looks like your code is working for the most part, however my html page displays the tags alongside the text without formatting into bold ex: Stephen. Ill add my html side code to my original post. — BadKarma1122, May 12 '19 at 17:46
@BadKarma1122 I've updated my answer, accept if it works, let me know if it doesn't. — Malekai, May 12 '19 at 18:02

Dynamically conditionally formatting text - if word in list

2 Answers2