Question

string.include?(other_string) is used to check if a string contains another string. Is there a nice way to check if a string contains at least one string from an array of strings?

string_1 = "a monkey is an animal. dogs are fun"

arrays_of_strings_to_check_against = ['banana', 'fruit', 'animal', 'dog']

This would return true, because string_1 contains the string 'animal'. If we remove 'animal' from arrays_of_strings_to_check_against, it would return false.

Note that the string 'dog' from arrays_of_strings_to_check_against should not match 'dogs' from string_1, because it has to be a complete match.

I’m using Rails 3.2.0 and Ruby 1.9.2

Answer 1

arrays_of_strings_to_check_against.map{ |o| string_1 =~ /\b#{Regexp.escape(o)}\b/ }.any?

Or even:

arrays_of_strings_to_check_against.any?{ |o| string_1 =~ /\b#{Regexp.escape(o)}\b/ }