Find All Close Matches of Input String from a List in Python

In this tutorial, we are going to find a solution to a problem. Let's see what the problem is. We have a list of strings and an element. We have to find strings from a list in which they must closely match to the given element. See the example.

Inputs
strings = ["Lion", "Li", "Tiger", "Tig"] element = "Lion"
Ouput
Lion Li

We can achieve this by using the startswith built-in method. See the steps to find the strings.

• Initialize string list and a string.
• Loop through the list.
  • If string from list startswith element or element startswith the string from the list

Print the string

Example

## initializing the string list
strings = ["Lion", "Li", "Tiger", "Tig"]
element = "Lion"
for string in strings:
   ## checking for the condition mentioned above
   if string.startswith(element) or element.startswith(string):
      ## printing the eligible string
      print(string, end = " ")
print()

If you run the above program,

Output

Lion Li

If you have any doubts regarding the program, please do mention them in the comment section.