String matching basics in Data Structures Theory - Mini Project: Build & Apply

String Matching Basics

📖 Scenario: You are working on a simple text search tool that helps users find if a small word or phrase appears inside a larger text. This is useful in many real-life situations like searching for a name in a list, finding a keyword in a document, or checking if a password contains a certain pattern.

🎯 Goal: Build a step-by-step understanding of how to check if one string appears inside another string using basic string matching techniques.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a main text string variable with a specific sentence.

Create a search word variable to look for inside the main text.

Use a method to check if the search word is found inside the main text.

Add a final step to confirm the presence or absence of the search word.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Searching for keywords in documents, filtering messages, or validating user input often requires checking if a smaller string exists inside a larger string.

💼 Career

Understanding string matching is essential for roles in software development, data analysis, and any job involving text processing or search functionality.

1

Create the main text string

Create a variable called main_text and set it to the string "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog".

Data Structures Theory

# Create the main text string
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use quotes to create a string and assign it to main_text.

2

Create the search word string

Create a variable called search_word and set it to the string "fox".

Data Structures Theory

main_text = "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"
# Create the search word string
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Assign the word you want to find to search_word.

3

Check if the search word is in the main text

Create a variable called found and set it to the result of checking if search_word is inside main_text using the in keyword.

Data Structures Theory

main_text = "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"
search_word = "fox"
# Check if search_word is in main_text
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use the in keyword to check if one string is inside another.

4

Confirm the presence of the search word

Create a variable called result_message and set it to "Found" if found is True, otherwise set it to "Not Found" using a simple if-else statement.

Data Structures Theory

main_text = "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"
search_word = "fox"
found = search_word in main_text
# Set result_message based on found
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use an if-else block to assign the correct message based on the boolean found.