how to search string for words??

[sovixi]

Hi I want to search a text file (.txt) for words that I specify in my program. However, I can’t come up with any working solution. My program search string in a text file for ‘met|meeting|meets’ but it returns values from words like “metro”: met-ro. I want it to look only for words ‘met, meeting, etc.’ and I don’t want them to be a part of other words. This is what I have right now:

pattern = re.compile('(?i)met|meeting')
match = re.search(pattern, filestring)
if match:
print 'Found match in ' +filename
print
count = count + 1

else:
print 'Match not found in ' +filename
print

Can anyone give me solution to that problem?
Thx

[ghostdog74]

Hi I want to search a text file (.txt) for words that I specify in my program. However, I can’t come up with any working solution. My program search string in a text file for ‘met|meeting|meets’ but it returns values from words like “metro”: met-ro. I want it to look only for words ‘met, meeting, etc.’ and I don’t want them to be a part of other words. This is what I have right now:

pattern = re.compile('(?i)met|meeting')
match = re.search(pattern, filestring)
if match:
print 'Found match in ' +filename
print
count = count + 1

else:
print 'Match not found in ' +filename
print

Can anyone give me solution to that problem?
Thx

if you really have to use regular expression, you can use the \b ( match at word boundary) operator. eg

>>> import re
>>> data=open("file").read()
>>> re.findall(r'\bmet\b|\bmeeting\b|\bmeets\b',data)
['meeting', 'meets', 'met']
 

sample input:

metro
comet
meeting
meteor
meetings
meets
meetshere
met
 

however without regular expression, you can use the equality operator "==" to test your search or the "in" keyword
eg only:

>>> for line in open("file"):
...  if "meet" == line.strip():  #or if line.strip() in ['meet','meeting','met']
...    print "found"
 

[sovixi]

thanks it works just how I wanted!!!