How to check if a sentence contains a specific word?

Question

I'm not looking for how to find a string inside another string. I'm looking for a word. So the solution should pass these tests:

let result: Bool = senx.contains(word: "are")

let sen1 = "We are good." //true
let sen2 = "We care about you." //false
let sen3 = "are"  //true
let sen4 = "are."  //true
let sen5 = "Are."  //true
let sen6 = "I have a flare." //false

You are, in fact, looking for a string within a string, but with the added conditions of a) case insensitivity and b) without any surrounding letters. — Scott Hunter, Sep 28 '16 at 13:16

score 4 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

4

You need a regex with a word boundaries \b around the value you are checking the presence for:

let pattern = "(?i)\\bare\\b"
if string.rangeOfString(pattern, options: .RegularExpressionSearch) != nil ...

The \bare\b matches any are that is a whole word (not preceded nor followed with letters/digits/underscores. The (?i) flag ensures a case insensitive search. See the regex demo.

See this SO answer for the code to check if a pattern matches a string.

See regular-expressions.info Word boundaries for more information on what \b word boundary does.

edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

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answered Sep 28 '16 at 13:18

Wiktor Stribiżew

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Just FYI: If you only want to match `Are` or `are` as whole words, but you do not want to detect `ARe` or `ARE` or `aRe`, etc. use *alternation*: `let pattern = "\\b(?:are|Are)\\b"` – Wiktor Stribiżew Sep 28 '16 at 13:24

How to check if a sentence contains a specific word?

1 Answers1