How to check if any item from a list of strings is in a big string?

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:36:05 -0700, inkhorn wrote:

> def list_items_in_string(list_items, string):
>     for item in list_items:
>         if item in string:
>             return True
>     return False
...
> Any ideas how to make that function look nicer? :)

Change the names. Reverse the order of the arguments. Add a docstring.

Otherwise looks pretty nice to me. Simple, straightforward, and correct.

If you're running Python 2.5 or better, then this is even shorter (and 
probably faster):

def contains(s, targets):
    """Return True if any item of targets is in string s."""
    return any(target in s for target in targets)



-- 
Steven