Question

I have an array of words(all the words are in NSMutableArray). I need to filter the words as shown below.

???? – Any four letter word
ma?t* – Any word that starts with the letters “ma” and has a “t” as the forth letter.
z – Any word that contains the letter “z”
?n?t? – Any five letter word with ”n” as the second letter and “t” as the forth letter.
*s*b* – Any word that contains the letter “s” and then the letter “b” in the remaining letters.
mouth  – The word “moth” will be returned if it exists in the current Word List
t*s? – Any words that start with the letter “t” , is at least three letters long and has “s” as the second last letter in the word.
* – Returns all words in the Word List.

Answer 1

you can use the below code for filter using pattern

-(NSMutableArray *)searchByPattern:(NSString *)patternString inputArray:(NSMutableArray *)inputArray
{
    NSLog(@"orginal Array count=%d",[inputArray count]);
    NSString *match=[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@",patternString];
    NSLog(@"match = %@",match);
    NSPredicate *predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"SELF like %@",match];    
    NSMutableArray *mArrayFiltered = [[inputArray filteredArrayUsingPredicate:predicate] mutableCopy];
    //NSLog(@"mArrayFiltered = %@ count = %d",mArrayFiltered,[mArrayFiltered count]);
    return mArrayFiltered;
}