regular expression dictionary search

[dorje tarap]

Hi

I have a dictionary with a list of patterns:
 Code: ( text )

   1. >>> words = {'sho.':6, '.ilk':8,'.an.':78 }


Where the "." character means any pattern - this can easily be changed to
the "*" symbol if need be.

When the user submits a word, I want to be able to look for a corresponding
pattern (if it exists). For example if the user said "show" or "shoe", then
the value 6 would be returned. If it was "band", "land", "sand", "pant" etc
then 78 would be returned - but not "pants" as it is longer than the
pattern.

I know the normal way is to provide the reg exp and search the dictionary
with it, but this is the other way round :(

Thanks
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