Regex? Match part of or whole word

Question

I was wondering if it\'s possible to use regex with python to capture a word, or a part of the word (if it\'s at the end of the string).

Eg:
target word - potato

Answer 1

import re

def get_matcher(word, minchars):
    reg = '|'.join([word[0:i] for i in range(len(word), minchars - 1, -1)])
    return re.compile('(%s)$' % (reg))

matcher = get_matcher('potato', 4)
for s in ["this is a sentence about a potato", "this is a sentence about a potat", "this is another sentence about a pota"]:
    print matcher.search(s).groups()

OUTPUT

('potato',)
('potat',)
('pota',)