Example: The hardcoded input in the system:
Welcome to work {sarah} have a great {monday}!
The one i get from an api call might differ by the day of the week or the name example:
Welcome to work Roy have a great Tuesday!
I want to compare these 2 lines and give an error if anything but the terms in brackets doesn't match.
The way I started is by using assert which is the exact function I need then tested with ignoring a sentence if it starts with { by using .startswith() but I haven't been successful working my way in specifics between the brackets that I don't want them checked.
Regular expressions are good for matching text.
Convert your template into a regular expression, using a regular expression to match the {} tags:
>>> import re
>>> template = 'Welcome to work {sarah} have a great {monday}!'
>>> pattern = re.sub('{[^}]*}', '(.*)', template)
>>> pattern
'Welcome to work (.*) have a great (.*)!'
To make sure the matching halts at the end of the pattern, put a $:
>>> pattern += '$'
Then match your string against the pattern:
>>> match = re.match(pattern, 'Welcome to work Roy have a great Tuesday!')
>>> match.groups()
('Roy', 'Tuesday')
If you try matching a non-matching string you get nothing:
>>> match = re.match(pattern, 'I wandered lonely as a cloud')
>>> match is None
True
If the start of the string matches but the end doesn't, the $ makes sure it doesn't match. The $ says "end here":
>>> match = re.match(pattern, 'Welcome to work Roy have a great one! <ignored>')
>>> match is None
True
edit: also you might want to escape your input in case anyone's playing silly beggars.