search a string for an array of string fragments

Question

I need to search through a string to see if it contains any of the text in an array of strings. For example

excludeList="warning","a common unimportant thing", "something else"

searchString=here is a string telling us about a common unimportant thing.

otherString=something common but unrelated

In this example, we would find the "common unimportant thing" string from the array in my searchList and would return true. however otherString doesn't contain any of the complete strings in the array, so would return false.

Im sure this isnt that complicated, but I've been looking at it for too long...

Update: The best I can get so far is:

#list of excluded terms
$arrColors = "blue", "red", "green", "yellow", "white", "pink", "orange", "turquoise"

#the message of the event we've pulled
$testString = "there is a blue cow over there"
$test2="blue"
$count=0
#check if the message contains anything from the secondary list
$arrColors | ForEach-Object{
    echo $count
    echo $testString.Contains($arrColors[$count])
    $count++

}

it isnt too elegant though...

I think I might have to do this in a loop one element at a time, but need to use a like statement I cant get working with an array element, see code below #list of excluded terms $arrColors = "blue", "red", "green", "yellow", "white", "pink", "orange", "turquoise" #the message of the event we've pulled $testString = "there is a blue cow over there" $test2="blue" #check if the message contains anything from the secondary list $testString -like "$arrColors[0]" $testString -like "blue" $test2 -contains $arrColors[0] — lee
– lee, Commented Sep 28, 2010 at 20:08
the above returns False True True Why doesnt the $testString -like "$arrColors[0]" return true? — lee
– lee, Commented Sep 28, 2010 at 20:12

Shay Levy · Accepted Answer · 2010-09-28 22:42:36Z

10

You can use a regular expression. The '|' regex character is the equivalent to the OR operator:

PS> $excludeList="warning|a common unimportant thing|something else"
PS> $searchString="here is a string telling us about a common unimportant thing."
PS> $otherString="something common but unrelated"

PS> $searchString -match $excludeList
True

PS> $otherString -match $excludeList
False

answered Sep 28, 2010 at 22:42

Shay Levy

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1 Comment

stej Over a year ago

Just an addtion to your answer - if the $excludeList is an array, I would use ($excludeList | % { [regex]::escape($_) } ) -join "|" to turn it into proper regular expression.

Emperor XLII · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-11 14:07:47Z

3

The function below finds all items contained in the specified string, returning true if any are found.

function ContainsAny( [string]$s, [string[]]$items ) {
  $matchingItems = @($items | where { $s.Contains( $_ ) })
  [bool]$matchingItems
}

answered Jun 11, 2011 at 14:07

Emperor XLII

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