fuzzy string alignment of two lists

fuzzy_align.py

from rapidfuzz import process, fuzz


def fuzzy_align(masterlist, list2, cutoff=70):
    # Dictionary to hold matches
    matches = {}

    # Track used indices to avoid duplicate matches in the masterlist
    used_indices = set()

    for item in list2:
        # Find the best match for each item in list2 within the masterlist
        # Ignore matches already used
        best_match, score, best_match_index = max(
            (
                match
                for match in process.extract(item, masterlist, scorer=fuzz.WRatio)
                if match[2] not in used_indices
            ),
            default=(None, 0, None),
            key=lambda x: x[1],
        )

        # If the match score is above the cutoff and not already used, add it to the matches
        if best_match and score > cutoff:
            matches[item] = best_match
            used_indices.add(best_match_index)
        else:
            matches[item] = None  # or any indicator that it wasn't matched

    return matches


# Example usage
masterlist = ["apple", "banana", "cherry", "date"]
list2 = ["appel", "bannana", "dates"]

matches = fuzzy_align(masterlist, list2)
for k, v in matches.items():
    print(f"{k}: {v}")