Python: How can I check between two strings that have repeating letters if string 1 is contained within string 2?

Question

def can_spell_with(target_word, letter_word):
    valid = True
    target_word1 = [x.lower() for x in target_word]
    letter_word1 = [x.lower() for x in letter_word]
    for c in target_word1:
        if c not in letter_word1:
            valid = False
        else:
            valid = True
    return valid
print(can_spell_with('elL','HEllo'))
# True
print(can_spell_with('ell','helo'))
# False

In the code above: I am trying to figure out how to return True if the letter_word contains the target_word.

So 'ell' in 'helo' would return False But 'ell' in 'hello' would return True

Does this answer your question? [Does Python have a string 'contains' substring method?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3437059/does-python-have-a-string-contains-substring-method) — sahasrara62, Jun 10 '20 at 05:27
capitalization does not matter and thank you for the suggestion, there is quite some details in the explanations there thank you — Gojilla, Jun 10 '20 at 09:23

MrNobody33 · Answer 1 · 2020-06-10T05:02:38.007

2

Try to use in:

def can_spell_with(a, b):
     return (a.upper() in b.upper())
print(can_spell_with('Ell','HEllo'))
>>>True
print(can_spell_with('ell','helo'))
>>>False

edited Jun 10 '20 at 05:02

answered Jun 10 '20 at 04:47

MrNobody33

6,413
7
19

whackamadoodle3000 · Answer 2 · 2020-06-10T06:08:14.033

2

You can use in but you first have to make the cases the same:

def can_spell_with(target_word, letter_word):
    return target_word.lower() in letter_word.lower()

edited Jun 10 '20 at 06:08

answered Jun 10 '20 at 04:48

whackamadoodle3000

6,684
4
27
44

This doesn't work with the first example. When you do `print(can_spell_with('Ell','HEllo'))`, the output is `False`, when it is true. – MrNobody33 Jun 10 '20 at 04:55
Should be "can_spell_with(letter_word, target_word)" This is doing "b in a" as opposed to "a in b" – Michael Jun 10 '20 at 04:58
Yeah @Michael, that's the problem – MrNobody33 Jun 10 '20 at 05:00
Oh sorry, I'll fix that – whackamadoodle3000 Jun 10 '20 at 06:07

jignatius · Answer 3 · 2020-06-10T05:39:09.957

You're doing a case-insensitive search. No need to do a list comprehension. Just use lower() or upper() to convert all characters to lower or uppercase and use in:

def can_spell_with(target_word, letter_word):
    return target_word.lower() in letter_word.lower()

Alternatively you could do a case insensitive regex search:

import re

def can_spell_with(target_word, letter_word):
    return re.search(target_word, letter_word, re.IGNORECASE) is not None

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 10 '20 at 05:17

1

target_word = target_word.lower() 
letter_word = letter_word.lower()

lenn = len(target_word)     
valid = False               

for i in range(len(letter_word)-lenn):   
    if letter_word[i:i+lenn] == target_word:   
        valid = True
return valid

answered Jun 10 '20 at 05:17

Saurabh Mahra

330
5
10

How does this part work: for i in range(len(letter_word)-lenn): if letter_word[i:i+lenn] == target_word: how does it know for 'ell' and 'helo' that the second 'l' is not there in 'helo'? to me it looks like it searches for e in helo then l in helo then l in helo which works out to be true – Gojilla Jun 10 '20 at 08:16

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 10 '20 at 05:20

this will check the whether word1 in word2 irrespective of lowercase or uppercase

def func(word1, word2):
    first_char = word1[0]
    for index, char in enumerate(word2):
        if char==first_char:
            if word2[index:len(word1)+1]==word1:
                return True
    return False

Python: How can I check between two strings that have repeating letters if string 1 is contained within string 2?

5 Answers5