How do I do a case-insensitive string comparison?

Assuming ASCII strings:

string1 = 'Hello'
string2 = 'hello'

if string1.lower() == string2.lower():
    print("The strings are the same (case insensitive)")
else:
    print("The strings are NOT the same (case insensitive)")

As of Python 3.3, casefold() is a better alternative:

string1 = 'Hello'
string2 = 'hello'

if string1.casefold() == string2.casefold():
    print("The strings are the same (case insensitive)")
else:
    print("The strings are NOT the same (case insensitive)")

If you want a more comprehensive solution that handles more complex unicode comparisons, see other answers.

You can use casefold() method. The casefold() method ignores cases when comparing.

firstString = "Hi EVERYONE"
secondString = "Hi everyone"

if firstString.casefold() == secondString.casefold():
    print('The strings are equal.')
else:
    print('The strings are not equal.')

Output:

The strings are equal.

The usual approach is to uppercase the strings or lower case them for the lookups and comparisons. For example:

>>> "hello".upper() == "HELLO".upper()
True
>>> 

How about converting to lowercase first? you can use string.lower().

a clean solution that I found, where I'm working with some constant file extensions.

from pathlib import Path


class CaseInsitiveString(str):
   def __eq__(self, __o: str) -> bool:
      return self.casefold() == __o.casefold()

GZ = CaseInsitiveString(".gz")
ZIP = CaseInsitiveString(".zip")
TAR = CaseInsitiveString(".tar")

path = Path("/tmp/ALL_CAPS.TAR.GZ")

GZ in path.suffixes, ZIP in path.suffixes, TAR in path.suffixes, TAR == ".tAr"

# (True, False, True, True)

You can mention case=False in the str.contains()

data['Column_name'].str.contains('abcd', case=False)

def search_specificword(key, stng):
    key = key.lower()
    stng = stng.lower()
    flag_present = False
    if stng.startswith(key+" "):
        flag_present = True
    symb = [',','.']
    for i in symb:
        if stng.find(" "+key+i) != -1:
            flag_present = True
    if key == stng:
        flag_present = True
    if stng.endswith(" "+key):
        flag_present = True
    if stng.find(" "+key+" ") != -1:
        flag_present = True
    print(flag_present)
    return flag_present

Output: search_specificword("Affordable housing", "to the core of affordable outHousing in europe") False

search_specificword("Affordable housing", "to the core of affordable Housing, in europe") True

from re import search, IGNORECASE

def is_string_match(word1, word2):
    #  Case insensitively function that checks if two words are the same
    # word1: string
    # word2: string | list

    # if the word1 is in a list of words
    if isinstance(word2, list):
        for word in word2:
            if search(rf'\b{word1}\b', word, IGNORECASE):
                return True
        return False

    # if the word1 is same as word2
    if search(rf'\b{word1}\b', word2, IGNORECASE):
        return True
    return False

is_match_word = is_string_match("Hello", "hELLO") 
True

is_match_word = is_string_match("Hello", ["Bye", "hELLO", "@vagavela"])
True

is_match_word = is_string_match("Hello", "Bye")
False

def insenStringCompare(s1, s2):
    """ Method that takes two strings and returns True or False, based
        on if they are equal, regardless of case."""
    try:
        return s1.lower() == s2.lower()
    except AttributeError:
        print "Please only pass strings into this method."
        print "You passed a %s and %s" % (s1.__class__, s2.__class__)

This is another regex which I have learned to love/hate over the last week so usually import as (in this case yes) something that reflects how im feeling! make a normal function.... ask for input, then use ....something = re.compile(r'foo*|spam*', yes.I)...... re.I (yes.I below) is the same as IGNORECASE but you cant make as many mistakes writing it!

You then search your message using regex's but honestly that should be a few pages in its own , but the point is that foo or spam are piped together and case is ignored. Then if either are found then lost_n_found would display one of them. if neither then lost_n_found is equal to None. If its not equal to none return the user_input in lower case using "return lost_n_found.lower()"

This allows you to much more easily match up anything thats going to be case sensitive. Lastly (NCS) stands for "no one cares seriously...!" or not case sensitive....whichever

if anyone has any questions get me on this..

    import re as yes

    def bar_or_spam():

        message = raw_input("\nEnter FoO for BaR or SpaM for EgGs (NCS): ") 

        message_in_coconut = yes.compile(r'foo*|spam*',  yes.I)

        lost_n_found = message_in_coconut.search(message).group()

        if lost_n_found != None:
            return lost_n_found.lower()
        else:
            print ("Make tea not love")
            return

    whatz_for_breakfast = bar_or_spam()

    if whatz_for_breakfast == foo:
        print ("BaR")

    elif whatz_for_breakfast == spam:
        print ("EgGs")