Searching in a list of string using Linq

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Hello everyone,

I have a list of strings. I have to match a character array in the list in such a way that the strings in list must contain only characters in the array.

For ex: if my character array (_currentLetters string in the code below) is abdfuwz. Then the possible list of selected strings from the list would be bad, dab etc.

Below is one possible solution I have:

C#

public string[] GetPossibleWords()
{
    wordsList.Clear();

    IEnumerable<string> words = from w in _list.WordListCollection
                                where (w.Length > 1 &&
                                        w.IndexOfAny(_currentLetters.ToArray()) >= 0 &&
                                        w.Length <= _currentLetters.Length)
                                select w;

    // Check the sorted array of current letters. If the string
    // is a substring of this, then the word is in
    foreach (string s in words)
    {
        char[] toMatch = s.ToCharArray();
        Array.Sort(toMatch);
        string m = new string(toMatch);
        if (_currentLetters.Contains(m))
        {
            wordsList.Add(s);
        }
    }

    return wordsList.ToArray();
}

As you can see, I am searching words in my list of words. Once I get the word list, I am iterating again with all the words we found and making sure that the found word is a substring of the character array. This character array is a sorted array of characters. I am not sure if this is the best way to achieve my goal. Is there a better way? Can I write the entire code using Linq?

Thanks

Posted 22-Feb-12 9:32am

Vivek Pandey (V)

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Jaganathan Bantheswaran · Answer 1 · 2012-02-22T19:04:00

Hi,

Its better to use RegEx as like the below one,

C#

class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {

            List<string> listOfPossibleStrings = GetStringsWithPossibleChars("abdfuwz", 
                new List<string>() 
                { 
                    "jagan", 
                    "bad", 
                    "dad", 
                    "well", 
                    "test"
                });

        }

        private static List<string> GetStringsWithPossibleChars(string pattern,List<string> lstStrings)
        {
            var newList = from str in lstStrings 
                          where (new Regex(@"^[\s\d" + pattern + "]*$", RegexOptions.Singleline).IsMatch(str)== true) 
                          select str;

            return (List<string>)newList;
        }

    }