How to only match the string exclusively but not the words containing that string?

Question

I have a list

a = ["CTC", "CTCglitches", "CTCremoval"]

I am running

re.search("CTC", a[0]),....,re.search("CTC", a[2]).

I only want to return True for re.search("CTC", a[0]), and False for the remaining two words.

Is there any option in regex?

If you want to know whether a string is exactly equal to some specific target string, why not just... compare them? — Karl Knechtel, Apr 05 '23 at 06:07

Ashad0203 · Answer 1 · 2023-04-05T06:29:12.223

1

Below code will work for you. . We just need to use re.search("^CTC$", word)

import re

a = ["CTC", "CTCglitches", "CTCremoval", "CTC test", "testCTC", "test CTC"]
for word in a:
    match = re.search("^CTC$", word)
    if match:
        print(True)
    else:
        print(False)

edited Apr 05 '23 at 06:29

answered Apr 05 '23 at 06:06

Ashad0203

97
5

1

This is wrong because it should not match `"CTC test"`. – Karl Knechtel Apr 05 '23 at 06:09
It looks like you're using the same solution I did. The examples you provided don't demonstrate use of word boundaries in the regex. – Chris Apr 05 '23 at 06:12
Yeah this is wrong in accordance to the question. – Cow Apr 05 '23 at 06:17
Updated the answer. I think it will cover all scenarios. Thanks Karl for pointing out – Ashad0203 Apr 05 '23 at 06:17

How to only match the string exclusively but not the words containing that string?

1 Answers1