finding an exact match for string

Question

I used the following function to find the exact match for words in a string.

def exact_Match(str1, word):
    result = re.findall('\\b'+word+'\\b', str1, flags=re.IGNORECASE)
    if len(result)>0:
        return True
    else:
        return False

exact_Match(str1, word)

But I get an exact match for both words "award" and "award-winning" when it only should be award-winning for the following string.

str1 = "award-winning blueberries"
word1 = "award"
word2 = "award-winning"

How can i get it such that re.findall will match whole words with hyphens and other punctuations?

Answer 1

Make your own word-boundary:

def exact_Match(phrase, word):
    b = r'(\s|^|$)' 
    res = re.match(b + word + b, phrase, flags=re.IGNORECASE)
    return bool(res)

copy-paste from here to my interpreter:

>>> str1 = "award-winning blueberries"
>>> word1 = "award"
>>> word2 = "award-winning"
>>> exact_Match(str1, word1)
False
>>> exact_Match(str1, word2)
True

Actually, the casting to bool is unnecessary and not helping at all. The function is better off without it:

def exact_Match(phrase, word):
    b = r'(\s|^|$)' 
    return re.match(b + word + b, phrase, flags=re.IGNORECASE)

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note: exact_Match is pretty unconventional casing. just call it exact_match.