python - check if list entry is contained in string

Question

I have a script where I'm walking through a list of passed (via a csv file) paths. I'm wondering how I can determine if the path I'm currently working with has been previously managed (as a subdirectory of the parent).

I'm keeping a list of managed paths like this:

pathsManaged = ['/a/b', '/c/d', '/e']

So when/if the next path is '/e/a', I want to check in the list if a parent of this path is present in the pathsManaged list.

My attempt so far:

if any(currPath in x for x in pathsManaged):
   print 'subdir of already managed path'

This doesn't seem to be working though. Am I expecting too much from the any command. Are there any other shortcuts that I could use for this type of look-up?

Thanks

Answer 1

Perhaps:

from os.path import dirname

def parents(p):
    while len(p) > 1:
        p = dirname(p)
        yield p

pathsManaged = ['/a/b', '/c/d', '/e']

currPath = '/e/a'

if any(p in pathsManaged for p in parents(currPath)):
    print 'subdir of already managed path'

prints:

subdir of already managed path

Answer 2

Assuming that pathsManaged contains absolute paths (otherwise I think all bets are off), then you could make currPath an absolute path and see if it starts with any of the paths in pathsManaged. Or in Python:

def is_path_already_managed(currPath):
    return any(
        os.path.abspath(currPath).startswith(managed_path)
        for managed_path in pathsManaged)

Also conceptually I feel pathsManaged should be a set, not a list.

Answer 3

If I understand you correctly, you want to check if any of pathsManaged is part of currPath, but you are doing this other way around. Depending on what you want, one of this should work for you:

any(x in currPath for x in pathsManaged)

any(currPath.startswith(x) for x in pathsManaged)

os.path.dirname(currPath) in pathsManaged