Python - match a word in a string with a list of strings

Question

I\'m new to python and I was wondering how string comparison is done

Let\'s say I have a list of strings containing state names like

states = [\"New York         


        

Answer 1

I would do

matches = [ s for s in states if s in postal_addr ]

Then, if you want to get the string from the postal address:

import re
if matches:
    extracted = re.findall( matches[0],  postal_addr)[0]

EDIT: ..but this won't work for city/state combos where the city name contains a different state, for example if postal_adr = '1 Arrowhead Dr, Kansas City, Missouri 64129' and states = ["New York", "California", "Nebraska", "Idaho", "Missouri", "Kansas"] etc. In this case

import re
if matches:
    extracted = [(re.search(m, postal_addr).start() , m) for m in matches ]
    extracted = sorted( extracted )[-1][1]