Determining if an array of strings contains a certain substring in ruby

Question

I have a simple ruby question. I have an array of strings. I'd like to determine if that array contains a substring of any of the strings. As an example

a = ['cat','dog','elephant']
a.to_s.include?('ele')

Is this the best way to do it?

Thanks.

Would you want to get true or false for ['cat','dog','elephant'] and 'gel'? — sepp2k
– sepp2k, Commented Sep 10, 2010 at 16:54
any idea on how to get array of elements that has the substring? — Surya
– Surya, Commented Aug 29, 2018 at 12:38

Shadwell · Accepted Answer · 2010-09-10 16:51:49Z

89

a.any? should do the job.

> a = ['cat','dog','elephant']
=> ["cat", "dog", "elephant"]
> a.any? { |s| s.include?('ele') }
=> true
> a.any? { |s| s.include?('nope') }
=> false

answered Sep 10, 2010 at 16:51

Shadwell

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3 Comments

Shiko Over a year ago

Is there a way to check multiple values ?

Shadwell Over a year ago

You'd need to do a nested any? check and probably a different question although a short answer might be: a.any? { |s| ['aba', 'ele'].any? { |t| s.include?(t) } }

Shiko Over a year ago

I ended with this haystack.select { |str| str.include?('wat') || str.include?('pre') }

Piyush Awasthi · Accepted Answer · 2019-07-10 06:12:33Z

14

Here is one more way: if you want to get that affected string element.

>  a = ['cat','dog','elephant']
=> ["cat", "dog", "elephant"]
> a.grep(/ele/)
=> ["elephant"]

if you just want Boolean value only.

> a.grep(/ele/).empty?
=> false # it return false due to value is present

Hope this is helpful.

answered Jul 10, 2019 at 6:12

Piyush Awasthi

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