Regex Word Search | Dataford Interview Questions

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Problem

Docusign may need to match user-entered patterns against words used in template names or document metadata. Given a dictionary of words and a pattern, determine whether at least one complete word matches the pattern.

The pattern supports:

A lowercase letter, which matches itself.
., which matches any single lowercase letter.
*, which must follow a letter or . and matches zero or more occurrences of that preceding element.

A match must consume the entire word, not just a prefix or substring.

Formal Specification

Implement pattern_exists(words, pattern).

Input: words, a list of lowercase strings, and pattern, a lowercase pattern string containing letters, ., and *.
Output: Return True if any word matches the complete pattern; otherwise return False.
The dictionary may contain duplicate words. The pattern will never begin with * or contain consecutive * characters.

Constraints

1 <= len(words) <= 10^4
1 <= len(word) <= 1000
0 <= len(pattern) <= 1000
Words contain only lowercase English letters
The pattern contains lowercase letters, '.', and '*'
The pattern never begins with '*' or contains consecutive '*' characters

Function Signature

def pattern_exists(words, pattern):