Create dictionary using string template and list of strings with differences

Question

I am new to python and wanted to know if there are best approaches for solving this problem. I have a string template which I want to compare with a list of strings and if any difference found, create a dictionary out of it.

template = "Hi {name}, how are you? Are you living in {location} currently? Can you confirm if following data is correct - {list_of_data}"
list_of_strings = [
    "Hi John, how are you? Are you living in California currently? Can you confirm if following data is correct - 123, 456, 345",
    "Hi Steve, how are you? Are you living in New York currently? Can you confirm if following data is correct - 6542"
]

expected = [
    {"name": "John", "location": "California", "list_of_data": [123, 456, 345]},
    {"name": "Steve", "location": "New York", "list_of_data": [6542]},
]

I tried many different approaches but ended up stuck in some random logics and the solutions did not look generic enough to support any string with the template. Any help is highly appreciated.

Nawal · Accepted Answer · 2022-08-19 12:12:57Z

2

You can use regular-expression

template = "Hi {name}, how are you? Are you living in {location} currently? Can you confirm if following data is correct - {list_of_data}"
list_of_strings = [
    "Hi John, how are you? Are you living in California currently? Can you confirm if following data is correct - 123, 456, 345",
    "Hi Steve, how are you? Are you living in New York currently? Can you confirm if following data is correct - 6542"
]

import re
expected = []
for s in list_of_strings:
    r_ = re.search("Hi (.+)?, how are you\? Are you living in (.+?) currently\? Can you confirm if following data is correct - (.+)", s)
    res = {}
    res["name"] = r_.group(1)
    res["location"] = r_.group(2)
    res["list_of_data"] = list(map(int, (r_.group(3).split(","))))
    expected.append(res)
print(expected)

It will produce following output

[{'name': 'John', 'location': 'California', 'list_of_data': [123, 456, 345]}, {'name': 'Steve', 'location': 'New York', 'list_of_data': [6542]}]

It should produce expected output, please check for minor bugs if any ...

answered Aug 19, 2022 at 12:12

Nawal

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1 Comment

NeelamS Over a year ago

This answer helped. I was not aware about how to use regular expressions in Python and about group() method. Thanks a lot

funnydman · Accepted Answer · 2022-08-19 12:34:51Z

I guess using named regular expression groups is more elegant way to solve this problem, for example:

import re 

list_of_strings = [
    "Hi John, how are you? Are you living in California currently? Can you confirm if following data is correct - 123, 456, 345",
    "Hi Steve, how are you? Are you living in New York currently? Can you confirm if following data is correct - 6542"
]

pattern = re.compile(
    r"Hi (?P<name>(.+)?), how are you\? "
    r"Are you living in (?P<location>(.+)) currently\? "
    r"Can you confirm if following data is correct - (?P<list_of_data>(.+))"
)

result = []
for string in list_of_strings:
    if match := pattern.match(string):
        obj = match.groupdict()
        obj['list_of_data'] = list(map(int, obj['list_of_data'].split(',')))
        result.append(obj)

print(result)

Output:

[
    {'name': 'John', 'location': 'California', 'list_of_data': [123, 456, 345]},
    {'name': 'Steve', 'location': 'New York', 'list_of_data': [6542]}
]

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