title: How to check if a string contains an element from a list in Python
body: <p>I have something like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>extensionsToCheck = ['.pdf', '.doc', '.xls']
  
  for extension in extensionsToCheck:
      if extension in url_string:
          print(url_string)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I am wondering what would be the more elegant way to do this in Python (without using the for loop)? I was thinking of something like this (like from C/C++), but it didn't work:</p>
  
  <pre><code>if ('.pdf' or '.doc' or '.xls') in url_string:
      print(url_string)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><em>Edit: I'm kinda forced to explain how this is different to the question below which is marked as potential duplicate (so it doesn't get closed I guess).</em>  </p>
  
  <p><em>The difference is, I wanted to check if a string is part of some list of strings whereas the other question is checking whether a string from a list of strings is a substring of another string. Similar, but not quite the same and semantics matter when you're looking for an answer online IMHO. These two questions are actually looking to solve the opposite problem of one another. The solution for both turns out to be the same though.</em> </p>