regex - Python to search CSV file and return relevant info

Question

I have a csv file with information about some computers on our network. I'd like to be able to type from the command line a quick line to bring me back the relevant items from the csv. In the format:

$ tag.py *hostname*

The csv has about 50 columns with information ranging from MAC address to last time seen on the network. I only want to output a selection of these columns when I search. I've written the necessary code and it works. However I want the search to be more flexible. As it stands, the search term needs to be exactly the same as the value I'm searching for. aka

$ tag.py mycomputer        # This returns nothing
$ tag.py mycomputer.co.uk  # This returns the information I want
$ tag.py 63746             # This returns nothing
$ tag.py 00063746          # This returns the information I want

So now for the code I have.

# Import Modules

import sys
import csv

# Get user Input
# I assume the script is used in the form script.py "search-term"
# If no input added to command, ask for user input

if len(sys.argv) < 2:
    print("Please enter a hostname or asset number.")
    search_1 = input("Search for:")
else:
    search_1=sys.argv[1]

# Setup Variables
# Open cvs and setup csv.reader settings

csvfile = open("file.csv", "r", encoding="Latin-1")
csvfile.seek 
reader = csv.reader(csvfile, dialect='excel', delimiter=",", quotechar="'")

# Search cvs for the input string

for line in reader:
    if search_1 in line:
        print("------------------------------------------------------")
        print("  Hostname = " + line[10])
        print("  " + line[11])
        print("  AssetId = " + line[30])
        print("  IP = " + line[7])
        print("  MAC = " + line[6])
        print("  Owner = " + line[15])
        print("  Username = " +line[14])
        print("  Tel = " + line[17])
        print("  Last Seen = " + line[27])
        print("------------------------------------------------------")

csvfile.close()

I would like the code to be able to ignore the fqdn if I search for a hostname or to add the extra 0 characters to the asset number. I think I can fix the asset number issue with a len(search_1) < 8 append some 0 to the front until it is 8 characters long but that's avoiding the fact that I really would prefer to just search for the string without manipulating it to match the thing I'm looking for.

Answer 1

Instead of testing if your input string is in the line, test if your input string is in any of the columns. The any() function is ideally suited for that:

if any(search_1 in col for col in line):

To break this down a little: each line in your csv.reader() iterable is itself a list of columns, you can loop over these. for col in line does just that. We test if search_1 is present in each column with search_1 in col, and any() will execute the loop until it finds a column where search_1 in col is True, in which case it stops iterating over the loop and returns True itself. If no match was found False is returned instead.