Matt, how many words are you looking for, in how long a string ? Were you able to time any( substr in long_string ) against re.compile ( "|".join( list_items )) ? (REs are my method of choice, but different inputs of course give different times -- see google regex speed site:groups.google.com / site:stackoverflow.com .)
cheers -- denis -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
