Issues comparing two lists

December 7, 2023

I am starting with a string of MAC addresses and a list of MAC addresses:

s3_mac_string = "[['50:9a:4c:17:b4:f5', '54:13:79:70:6b:97', '54:13:79:70:6b:98', '56:13:79:70:6b:97', '66:13:79:70:6b:97'], ['c8:34:8e:72:3f:89', 'c8:34:8e:72:3f:8a', 'ca:34:8e:72:3f:89'], ['54:ee:75:b7:9f:a4', 'f0:d5:bf:bf:65:ee', 'f0:d5:bf:bf:65:ef', 'f2:d5:bf:bf:65:ee']]"
huntress_unseen_mac = [['80:86:f2:da:dd:ce', '80:86:f2:da:dd:cf', '80:86:f2:da:dd:d2', '82:86:f2:da:dd:ce', 'ec:f4:bb:40:25:be'], ['10:60:4b:73:39:db'], ['a4:bb:6d:3f:ed:10'], ['a4:bb:6d:3e:7b:e1'], ['d0:3c:1f:77:84:b3', 'd0:3c:1f:77:84:b4', 'f0:d5:bf:bf:65:ee', 'd0:3c:1f:77:84:b7']]

I am then converting string1 to a list with this function:

def Convert(string):
    string = string.replace("[", "").replace("]", "").replace('"', "").replace("'", "")
    li = list(string.split(","))
    return li

My main():

def main():
    s3_mac_string = get_mac_addresses_from_s3()
    huntress_unseen_mac = get_unseen_mac_huntress()
    s3_mac_list = Convert(s3_mac_string)

    huntress_unseen_mac_lower = [
        str(huntress_unseen_mac).lower().strip()
        for huntress_unseen_mac in huntress_unseen_mac
    ]

    s3_mac_list_lower = [str(s3_mac).lower().strip() for s3_mac in s3_mac_list]

    common_macs = []
    for mac in huntress_unseen_mac_lower:
        if mac in s3_mac_list_lower:
            common_macs.append(mac)

    print(f"Common MACs: {common_macs}")

The printing of the common macs is just printing an empty list eventhough there are commonalities between the lists. As a troubleshooting step I appended the huntress_unseen_mac_lower with huntress_unseen_mac_lower.appent("<MAC THAT IS IN S3_MAC_LIST")

I also tried using set intersection initially and that didn’t work either.

    huntress_unseen_mac_lower = [
        str(huntress_unseen_mac).lower() for huntress_unseen_mac in huntress_unseen_mac
    ]
    s3_mac_list_lower = [str(s3_mac).lower() for s3_mac in s3_mac_list]

    common_macs = set(huntress_unseen_mac_lower).intersection(s3_mac_list_lower)

    print(f"Common Macs: {list(common_macs)}")

Is there something I am missing?

>Solution :

You can build a list of lists from s3_mac_string using ast.literal_eval.

From that, build a set from all the sub-elements.

Build another set from huntress_unseen_mac (which is already a list of lists).

Print the intersection of the two sets.

from ast import literal_eval

def as_set(_list: list[list[str]]) -> set:
    s = set()
    s.update(*_list)
    return s

s3_mac_string = "[['50:9a:4c:17:b4:f5', '54:13:79:70:6b:97', '54:13:79:70:6b:98', '56:13:79:70:6b:97', '66:13:79:70:6b:97'], ['c8:34:8e:72:3f:89', 'c8:34:8e:72:3f:8a', 'ca:34:8e:72:3f:89'], ['54:ee:75:b7:9f:a4', 'f0:d5:bf:bf:65:ee', 'f0:d5:bf:bf:65:ef', 'f2:d5:bf:bf:65:ee']]"
huntress_unseen_mac = [['80:86:f2:da:dd:ce', '80:86:f2:da:dd:cf', '80:86:f2:da:dd:d2', '82:86:f2:da:dd:ce', 'ec:f4:bb:40:25:be'], ['10:60:4b:73:39:db'], ['a4:bb:6d:3f:ed:10'], ['a4:bb:6d:3e:7b:e1'], ['d0:3c:1f:77:84:b3', 'd0:3c:1f:77:84:b4', 'f0:d5:bf:bf:65:ee', 'd0:3c:1f:77:84:b7']]

s3_mac_set = as_set(literal_eval(s3_mac_string))
h_mac_set = as_set(huntress_unseen_mac)

print(s3_mac_set & h_mac_set)

Output: