match exact string separated by white spaces python

Question

Example:

strings_to_search = ['abc', 'def', 'fgh hello']

complete_list = ['abc abc dsss abc', 'defgj', 'abc fgh hello xabd', 'fgh helloijj']

for col_key in strings_to_search:
    print(list(map(lambda x: re.findall(col_key, x), complete_list)))

We get below output by running the above program, I am able to match abc 4 times as it is matching 3 times in 0th index and 1 time in 2nd index of the complete_list.

'def' is matching against 'defgj', but I want to match only if there is a string like 'def abc' or 'def'. (either separated by white-spaces or matching start and end of the string)

similarly 'fgh hello' is matching against 'abc fgh hello xabd' and 'fgh helloijj'. I wanted this to match only against 'abc fgh hello xabd' as it is separated with white-space. Can anyone please suggest how I can achieve this in python?

[['abc', 'abc', 'abc'], [], ['abc'], []]

[[], ['def'], [], []]

[[], [], ['fgh hello'], ['fgh hello']]

Answer 1

Use word breaks (\\b) in your regular expression.

import re
strings_to_search = ['abc', 'def', 'fgh hello']
complete_list = ['abc abc dsss abc', 'defgj', 'abc fgh hello xabd', 'fgh helloijj']

for col_key in strings_to_search:
    word = r'\b{}\b'.format(col_key)
    print(list(map(lambda x: re.findall(word, x), complete_list)))

Output:

[['abc', 'abc', 'abc'], [], ['abc'], []]
[[], [], [], []]
[[], [], ['fgh hello'], []]