https://code.google.com/codejam/contest/90101/dashboard#s=p0

aliens.py

#! /usr/bin/env python3
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
"""
https://code.google.com/codejam/contest/90101/dashboard#s=p0
"""


import re
import sys


PATTERN = re.compile(r'([a-z]|\([a-z]+\))')


def get_cases_and_words(fh):
    """
    Read the headerline of the file - 3 integers separated by a space:
        1. the length of a word in the alien language
        2. the number of words in the language
        3. the number of test cases

    :return tuple: (testcases, wordlen, words)
    """
    wordlen, wordcount, testcases = [int(x) for x in fh.readline().strip().split()]
    words = list()
    while len(words) < wordcount:
        word = fh.readline().strip()
        assert len(word) == wordlen
        words.append(word)
    assert len(words) == wordcount
    return testcases, words


def match_letter(letters, words, idx):
    return [w for w in words if w[idx] in letters]


def match_word(word, words):
    """
    Find the possiblities for a word a word (whch is a list of tuples)
    in a a given set of words.
    """
    for i, letters in enumerate(word):
        words = match_letter(letters, words, i)
        if not words:
            break
    return words


def read_testcase(fh):
    """
    Read a testcase line from the file handle tokenizing it into a list of
    lists

    :return list:
    """
    line = fh.readline().strip()
    match = PATTERN.findall(line)
    if match is None:
        raise ValueError('Unable to match {}'.format(line))
    return [tuple(x.strip('()')) for x in match]


def main(argv):
    with open(argv[1]) as fh:
        testcases, words = get_cases_and_words(fh)
        for i in range(1, testcases+1):
            line = read_testcase(fh)
            possible = match_word(line, words)
            print('Case #{case}: {poss}'.format(case=i, poss=len(possible)))
    return 0


if __name__ == "__main__":
    try:
        sys.exit(main(sys.argv))
    except IndexError:
        print("Usage: {} [inputfile]".format(sys.argv[0]), file=sys.stderr)
        sys.exit(1)
    except Exception as ex:
        print("Uncaught {e} exception: {msg}".format(e=ex.__class__.__name__, msg=str(ex)))
        sys.exit(1)