Python | Test if string contains element from list

Last Updated : 27 Mar, 2019

During web development in Python, we generally come across a problem where we need to test if a particular element from a given list lies as sub-string or not. This kind of problem is also very common in Machine Learning domain. Let’s discuss certain ways in which this can be done.

Method #1 : Using list comprehension
This problem can be solved using the list comprehension, in this, we check for the list and also with string elements if we can find a match, and return true, if we find one and false is not using the conditional statements.

# Python3 code to demonstrate
# checking if string contains list element
# using list comprehension
  
# initializing string 
test_string = "There are 2 apples for 4 persons"
  
# initializing test list
test_list = ['apples', 'oranges']
  
# printing original string 
print("The original string : " + test_string)
  
# printing original list 
print("The original list : " + str(test_list))
  
# using list comprehension
# checking if string contains list element
res = [ele for ele in test_list if(ele in test_string)]
  
# print result
print("Does string contain any list element : " + str(bool(res)))

Output :

The original string : There are 2 apples for 4 persons
The original list : ['apples', 'oranges']
Does string contain any list element : True

Method #2 : Using any()
Using any function is the most classical way in which you can perform this task and also efficiently. This function checks for match in string with match of each element of list.

# Python3 code to demonstrate
# checking if string contains list element
# using list comprehension
  
# initializing string 
test_string = "There are 2 apples for 4 persons"
  
# initializing test list
test_list = ['apples', 'oranges']
  
# printing original string 
print("The original string : " + test_string)
  
# printing original list 
print("The original list : " + str(test_list))
  
# using list comprehension
# checking if string contains list element
res = any(ele in test_string for ele in test_list)
  
# print result
print("Does string contain any list element : " + str(res)

Output :

The original string : There are 2 apples for 4 persons
The original list : ['apples', 'oranges']
Does string contain any list element : True

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