Question

I have a functions that returns cases from a table that match specific strings.
Once I get all the cases that match those strings, I need to search each case (which is its own list) for specific strings and do a Which command. But all I know how to do is turn the whole big list of lists into one string, and then I only get one result (when I need a result for each case).

UC@EncodeTable;

 EncodeTable[id_?PersonnelQ, f___] :=
  Cases[#, 
   x_List /; 
   MemberQ[x, 
   s_String /; 
   StringMatchQ[
    s, ("*ah*" | "*bh*" | "*gh*" | "*kf*" | 
      "*mn*"), IgnoreCase -> True]], {1}] &@
   Cases[MemoizeTable["PersonnelTable.txt"], {_, id, __}]

That function is returning cases from the table

Which[(StringMatchQ[
 ToString@
  EncodeTable[11282], ("*bh*" | "*ah*" | 
   "*gh*" ), IgnoreCase -> True]) == True, 1, 
 (StringMatchQ[
 ToString@
   EncodeTable[11282], ("*bh*" | "*ah*" | 
   "*gh*" ), IgnoreCase -> True]) == False, 0]

That function is SUPPOSED to return a 1 or 0 for each case returned by the first function, but I don’t know how to search within lists without making them all one string and return a result for each list.

Answer 1

Well, you probaby want Map, but it’s hard to say without seeing what the structure of the data to be operated upon is. Perhaps you can provide an example.

EDIT: In the comment, an example result was given as

dat = {{204424, 11111, SQLDateTime[{1989, 4, 4, 0, 0, 0.}], Null, 
"Parthom, Mary, MP", Null, 4147, 
"T-00010 AH BH UI", {"T-00010 AH BH UI", "M-14007 LL GG", 
 "F-Y3710 AH LL UI GG"}, "REMOVED."}, {2040, 11111, 
SQLDateTime[{1989, 4, 13, 0, 1, 0.}], Null, "KEVIN, Stevens, STK",
 Null, 81238, 
"T-00010 ah gh mn", {"T-00010 mn", "M-00100 dd", "P-02320 sd", 
 "M-14003 ed", "T-Y8800 kf", "kj"}}};

(actually the example had a syntax error so I fixed it in what I hope is the right way).

Now, if I define a function

func = Which[(StringMatchQ[#[[8]], ("*bh*" | "*ah*" | "*gh*"), 
   IgnoreCase -> True]) == True, 1, True, 0] &;

(note the second condition to be matched may be written as True, see the documentation of Which) which does this

func[dat[[1]]]
(*
-> 1
*)

(note that I’ve slightly changed func from what you have, in order for it to do what I assume you wanted it to actually do). This can then be applied to dat, of which the elements have the form you gave, as follows:

Map[func, dat]

(*
-> {1, 1}
*)
I’m not sure if this is what you want, I did my best guessing.

EDIT2: In response to the comment about the position of the element to be matched being variable, here is one way:

ClearAll[funcel]
funcel[p_String] := 
  Which[StringMatchQ[p, ("*bh*" | "*ah*" | "*gh*"), 
   IgnoreCase -> True], 1, True, 0];
funcel[___] := 0;

ClearAll[func];
func[lst_List] := Which[MemberQ[Map[funcel, lst], 1], 1, True, 0]

so that

Map[func, dat]

gives {1,1}