prefix matching

[Holger Türk]

Christian Gudrian wrote:
> Given a list with strings.
> 
> What is the most pythonic way to check if a given string starts with one of
> the strings in that list?
> 
> I started by composing a regular expression pattern which consists of all
> the strings in the list separated by "|" in a for loop. Then I used that
> pattern to do a regexp match.
> 
> Seems rather complicated to me. Any alternatives?

I'd use something like this:

reduce (operator.or_,
         [string_to_test.startswith (x) for x in list_with_strings])

Greetings,

Holger