Longest Word

2022-06-27.py

question = """

Given a string str and a set of words dict, find the longest word in dict that is a subsequence of str.

Example:

let str = "abppplee"
let dict = {"able", "ale", "apple", "bale", "kangaroo"}

$ longestWord(str, dict)
$ 'apple'
// "able" and "ale" also work, but are shorter than "apple"
// "bale" has all the right letters, but not in the right order

"""

import re

def longestWord(str, dictionary):
    longest_word = ''
    for word in dictionary:
        word_pattern = ''
        for letter in word:
            word_pattern = word_pattern + letter + ".*"
        word_p = re.compile(word_pattern)
        word_m = word_p.search(str)
        if word_m:
            if len(word) > len(longest_word):
                longest_word = word
    return longest_word

str = 'abppplee'
dictionary = ["able", "ale", "apple", "bale", "kangaroo"]
print(longestWord(str, dictionary))