What's the most elegant way to check if any item from a list is inside another list in Python?

Asked Sep 20 '20 at 15:14

Active Sep 20 '20 at 15:19

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a = ["one", "two", "three"]
b = ["three two", "four", "five"]

I just want to check if any element of list a is found within any elements of b, as a boolean result. Is there a more elegant way than having to loop both lists?

In this case, "three" is found in "three two", so it returns True.

asked Sep 20 '20 at 15:14

Joan Venge

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Other than looping and breaking when a match is found, how else would you know without checking element by element? – Chris Sep 20 '20 at 15:18
if "threetwo", would this return true? – hgb123 Sep 20 '20 at 15:20
@hgb123 Yes, it would. – Joan Venge Sep 20 '20 at 15:22
@Chris maybe there is some built-in function in python. – Joan Venge Sep 20 '20 at 15:23
@JoanVenge my point is that even if there were a function, in the background it'd still be looping. – Chris Sep 20 '20 at 15:24
Oh yes of course. I mean without me looping, that's what I mean. – Joan Venge Sep 20 '20 at 15:25

What's the most elegant way to check if any item from a list is inside another list in Python?

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