Excluding string array elements from another array

Question

I have two arrays of strings, and I need to exclude elements from one that contain elements of the second.

strings = ["chairs are on sale today", "my dog likes bumblebees", "one bad apple", "most snow is green"]

nouns = ["chair", "stove", "apple"]

the ideal result would be an array (either new or modified strings) that contains

["my dog likes bumblebees", "most snow is green"]

If this were exact matches, I could use the built-in functions:

result = strings - nouns

but obviously that won't work here.

Is there a simple way to do this, using grep, select, or some other ruby function?

Thanks!

spickermann · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-02 21:20:47Z

4

strings.reject { |string| string =~ Regexp.union(nouns) }

answered Oct 2, 2013 at 21:20

spickermann

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1 Comment

or strings.reject &Regexp.union(nouns).method(:match).to_proc. Not that yours isn't much better..