Question

is there a way to check for a certain pattern such that when is use the function the elements in the list fulfilling the pattern can be printed…e.g.

i have a list

abc=['adams, brian','smith, will',' and j.smith. there is a long string here','some more strings','some numbers','etc etc']

now what i want is that i get all the strings that have the format 'xyz,abc' and 'x.abc' out of the list.

it would be a great help if u guys could tell me of a generalized way of how i can look for a certain pattern in a list.

Answer 1

I’d use regular expressions:

>>> import re
>>> exp = re.compile('(\w+\.\w+)|(\w+,\s?\w+)')
>>> map(exp.findall, abc)
[[('', 'adams, brian')], [('', 'smith, will')], [('j.smith', '')], [], [], []]

Functional way of flattening this result:

>>> r = map(exp.findall, abc)
>>> filter(None, sum(sum(r, []), ()))
('adams, brian', 'smith, will', 'j.smith')