CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpandas
TKTK
TKTK

Reputation: 57

building a function with string search logic in python

I'm trying to create a function which takes a product and checks whether that string contains a category in categories list. The check should not be case-sensitive, but when the first match is found the function should return the value as it is given in the list. If the product does not contain any of the categories the string 'Other' should be returned.

Example: if product = Debit card and categories = ['Account', 'Card', 'Debit'] then assign_category(product, categories) will return Card.

This is the base code:

def assign_category(product, categories):
    for x in range(len(categories)):
        if categories[x] == product:
            return product
        return 'Other'

I'm struggling to find a way for the function to take account of the word, when it isn't exactly entered as so. The list is: ['Reporting', 'Card', 'Account', 'Debt', 'Loan', 'Mortgage']

one entry in the list to break down is Debit cards so it should return Card

any help would be greatly appreciated.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 107

Answers (2)

aviso
aviso

Reputation: 2841

You want to compare both product and category in lowercase

categories = ['Reporting', 'Card', 'Account', 'Debt', 'Loan', 'Mortgage']

def assign_category(product, categories):
    product = product.lower()
    for category in categories:
        if category.lower() in product:
            return category
    return 'Other'

>>> assign_category("Debit card", categories)
'Card'

Upvotes: 1

yakir0
yakir0

Reputation: 184

Use title() for non case-sensitive check and use in to search the category in the product. You should also return the category, not the product. The return 'Other' statment should be outside the 'for' loop. like this:

def assign_category(product, categories):
    for x in range(len(categories)):
        if categories[x] in product.title():
            return categories[x]
    return 'Other'

I also recommend looping through categories and not range(len(categories)) (redundent according to the question) like this:

def assign_category(product, categories):
    for category in categories:
        if category in product.title():
            return category
    return 'Other'

Upvotes: 1

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