Python: how to sort a list of strings by substring relevance?

Question

I have some list of strings, for example:

["foo bar SOME baz TEXT bob",
"SOME foo bar baz bob TEXT",
"SOME foo TEXT",
"         


        

Answer 1

You can use difflib.SequenceMatcher, to achieve something very similar to your desired output:

>>> import difflib
>>> l = ["foo bar SOME baz TEXT bob", "SOME foo bar baz bob TEXT", "SOME foo TEXT", "foo bar SOME TEXT baz", "SOME TEXT"]
>>> sorted(l, key=lambda z: difflib.SequenceMatcher(None, z, "SOME TEXT").ratio(), reverse=True)
['SOME TEXT', 'SOME foo TEXT', 'foo bar SOME TEXT baz', 'foo bar SOME baz TEXT bob', 'SOME foo bar baz bob TEXT']

If you can't tell the only difference is that the position of the two elements "foo bar SOME TEXT baz" and "SOME foo TEXT" are swapped compared to your desired output.