Methods to search and retrieve pandas dataframe columns by substring matching.

colfind.py

import re

def colfind(self, query, ignore_case=True):
    if type(self)!=pd.DataFrame:
        raise Exception(
            'colsearch method only applicable to pandas.DataFrame objects'
        )
    
    re_query = re.escape(query) 
    re_search = re.compile(re_query, (re.IGNORECASE if ignore_case else None))
    column_matches = [True if re_search.search(f'({col})') else False for col in self.columns]
    matching_columns = self.columns[column_matches].tolist()
    
    return(matching_columns)

def colget(self, query, ignore_case=True):
    return self[colsearch(self, query, ignore_case=ignore_case)]

# This allows you to apply these functions as class methodss
# to Pandas DataFrame objects
pd.DataFrame.colfind = colfind
pd.DataFrame.colget = colget