From: ara.t.howard@...
Date: 2006-02-04T07:17:16+09:00
Subject: Re: Regexp question for doing "and" searches

On Sat, 4 Feb 2006, Jeff Cohen wrote:

> Just can't quite figure this one out.
>
> Given a search phrase like "one two three", I want to search a list of
> text strings for onex that contain ALL of those words, but not
> necessarily in that order.
>
> The hard part for me is the "not necessarily in that order".
>
> Using '\b(one|two|three)\b' will match if at least one of them occurs in
> any order, but I need all of them to match *and* be in any order.
>
> two one three => match
> one three => does not match
>
> Any ideas?  Is this possible with regular expressions?
>
> Thanks!
> Jeff

stupid - but works

     harp:~ > cat a.rb
     strings = <<-txt
       two one three
       one three
       one foo two bar  three
       foo two bar one three
       two
     txt

     atoms = '\b(?:one|two|three)\b'
     re = %r/(?:#{ atoms }).*(?:#{ atoms }).*(?:#{ atoms })/

     require "yaml" and strings.each{|string| y string => (string =~ re ? true : false)}


     harp:~ > ruby a.rb
     ---
     "  two one three\n": true
     ---
     "  one three\n": false
     ---
     "  one foo two bar  three\n": true
     ---
     "  foo two bar one three\n": true
     ---
     "  two\n": false

hth.

-a

-- 
happiness is not something ready-made.  it comes from your own actions.
- h.h. the 14th dali lama