title: How can I use the OR operator for the str.contains funtion when searching for multiple strings in a column or in multiple columns in Python?
body: <p>I am trying to use the <code>str.contains</code> function in Python to search for a 'keyword' within a column. </p>
  
  <p>I have succeeded with looking up one key word in one column.</p>
  
  <p>However, what I would need is the following:
  - Search for multiple keywords in one column</p>
  
  <p>I am using the following sample dataset:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Employee    Employee ID     Category    Comments
  Jack        11234           Holiday     Holiday trip
  Ben         1921            Business    Business trip
  John        233535          Other       Other trip
  Pete        892230          Other       Other trip
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>By using the following code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>df[df['Category'].str.contains("holiday", case=False)]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I have succeed in getting the following result:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Employee    Employee ID         Category        Comments
  Jack            11234           Holiday         Holiday trip
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>However, I would like to search for keywords holiday OR business. Using the OR operator I cannot seem to make it work. Any suggestions on expanding the code so I can look search for both words holiday OR business? </p>
  
  <p>The end result would then need to look like this (meaning returns rows that have keyword Holiday OR Business in column Category):</p>
  
  <pre><code>Employee    Employee ID     Category    Comments
  Jack        11234           Holiday     Holiday trip
  Ben         1921            Business    Business trip
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The next part is that I would like to search for the keyword in multiple columns. I tried the following code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>df[df['Category'].str.contains("holiday", case=False)] | 
  df[df['Comments'].str.contains("holiday", case=False)]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But this unfortunately didn't yield the expected results.</p>
  
  <p>Many thanks for your insights!</p>