doug shawhan wrote: > I have a series of lists to compare with a list of exclusionary terms. > > > > junkList =["interchange", "ifferen", "thru"] > > The comparison lists have one or more elements, which may or may not > contain the junkList elements somewhere within: > > l = ["My skull hurts", "Drive the thruway", "Interchangability is not > my forte"] > > ... output would be > > ["My skull hurts"] > > I have used list comprehension to match complete elements, how can I > do a partial match? > > def removeJunk(reply, junkList): > return [x for x in reply if x not in junkList] > > It would be so much prettier than searching through each list element > for each term - I tend to get lost in a maze of twisty corridors, all > alike. Just say the magic word PLUGH! Be sure to pick up the batteries while you're in there.
How about re? import re Build the search pattern: pattern = "|".join(junkList) Compile it: junkListPattern = re.compile(pattern) def removeJunk(reply, junkListPattern): return [x for x in reply if not junkListPattern.search(x)] *just with your <bare> hands* -- Bob Gailer 510-978-4454 _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor