This is a first try, is something like this enough for you?
data = """apple1
apple2
apple3_SD
formA
formB
formC
kla_MM
kla_MB
kca_MM""".split()
headtails = {}
for word in data:
head = word[:-1]
if head in headtails:
headtails[head].append(word[-1])
else:
headtails[head] = [word[-1]]
for head, tails in sorted(headtails.iteritems()):
if len(tails) == 1:
print head + tails[0]
else:
print head + "[%s]" % "".join(tails)
Output:
apple[12]
apple3_SD
form[ABC]
kca_MM
kla_M[MB]
It looks only the last letters. It modifies the original order (it
sorts the sequence on the root-word).
If you don't need sorted results you can remove the sorted().
Bye,
bearophile
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