python bypass re.finditer match when searched words are in a defined expression

Question

I have a list of words (find_list) that I want to find in a text and a list of expressions containing those words that I want to bypass (scape_list) when it is in the text.

I can find all the words in the text using this code:

find_list = ['name', 'small']
scape_list = ['small software', 'company name']

text = "My name is Klaus and my middle name is Smith. I work for a small company. The company name is Small Software. Small Software sells Software Name."

final_list = []

for word in find_list:
    
    s = r'\W{}\W'.format(word)
    matches = re.finditer(s, text, (re.MULTILINE | re.IGNORECASE))

    for word_ in matches:
        final_list.append(word_.group(0))

The final_list is:

[' name ', ' name ', ' name ', ' Name.', ' small ', ' Small ', ' Small ']

Is there a way to bypass expressions listed in scape_list and obtain a final_list like this one:

[' name ', ' name ', ' Name.', ' small ']

final_list and scape_list are always being updated. So I think that regex is a good approach.

Answer 1

You can capture the word before and after the find_list word using the regex and check whether both the combinations are not present in the scape_list. I have added comments where I have changed the code. (And better change the scape_list to a set if it can become large in future)

find_list = ['name', 'small']
scape_list = ['small software', 'company name']

text = "My name is Klaus and my middle name is Smith. I work for a small company. The company name is Small Software. Small Software sells Software Name."

final_list = []

for word in find_list:
    
    s = r'(\w*\W)({})(\W\w*)'.format(word) # change the regex to capture adjacent words
    matches = re.finditer(s, text, (re.MULTILINE | re.IGNORECASE))

    for word_ in matches:
        if ((word_.group(1) + word_.group(2)).strip().lower() not in scape_list
            and (word_.group(2) + word_.group(3)).strip().lower() not in scape_list): # added this condition
            final_list.append(word_.group(2)) # changed here

final_list
['name', 'name', 'Name', 'small']