Question

I’m writing a script in Python that will allow the user to input a string, which will be a command that instructs the script to perform a specific action. For the sake of argument, I’ll say my command list is:

lock
read
write
request
log

Now, I want the user to be able to enter the word “log” and it will peform a specific action, which is very simple. However, I would like to match partial words. So, for example, if a user enters “lo”, it should match “lock”, as it’s higher in the list. I’ve tried using strncmp from libc using ctypes to accomplish this, but have yet to make heads or tails of it.

Answer 1

If you are accepting input from a user, then why are you worried about the speed of comparison? Even the slowest technique will be far faster than the user can perceive. Use the simplest most understandable code you can, and leave efficiency concerns for tight inner loops.

cmds = [
    "lock",
    "read",
    "write",
    "request",
    "log",
    ]

def match_cmd(s):
    matched = [c for c in cmds if c.startswith(s)]
    if matched:
        return matched[0]