Exact string match str.count(), pandas python

Question

Counting the column contents for each category, have a set of categories

1. Male-Cat,
2. Female-Cat,
3. Male-Cat-Female

With df.temp.str.count(i), it is showing Male-Cat count as '2', which when search in data that is only '1', wrongly including substring of third category.

Any help will be appreciated.

Answer 1

You need use regex from here:

df['count'] = df.temp.str.count(r'(?<!\S)Male-Cat(?!\S)')
print (df)

                                           temp  count
0  Male-Cat Female-Cat Male-Cat-Female Male-Cat      2
1                               Male-Cat-Female      0
2                                      Male-Cat      1
3             Male-Cat Male-Cat Male-Cat-Female      2
4                    Male-Cat Male-Cat Male-Cat      3