Matching a substring to any element in an array

[Khab]

Hey all, I'm hoping someone can assist with an efficient way to do this. I tried searching, but didn't really find exactly what I'm after (though it is possible I just used bad search terms).

Basically, I have a script that reads through each line in a text file using FileReadLine. As it reads each line, I need to check the line to see if any words, which are stored in an array (although this can be stored differently if there is a better way), are in the line. I have an event to trigger, if any of the array words is found in the line.

E.g. I might have a word list:

John

Steve

Mary

Lisa

And a line like:

Last week John went to the shops with Mary

In this case, the event should trigger, as one (or more, it doesn't matter) of the array list strings was found in the line.

At the moment, I'm basically stepping through the array with a For loop, generating a regex containing the array element, comparing it to the current line being read, and if it matches, then trigger the event.

However, this seems to be very slow & inefficient - is there a better way to do this?

Cheers!

[qazwsx]

I'm basically stepping through the array with a For loop, generating a regex containing the array element,

Which array? The search array? Why generate it everytime? Perhaps using stringinstr would be faster? Would it be faster to read the entire file to memory rather than doing one line at a time?

[99ojo]

Which array? The search array? Why generate it everytime? Perhaps using stringinstr would be faster? Would it be faster to read the entire file to memory rather than doing one line at a time?

Hi,

have a look at _FileReadToArray and _ArraySearch (could be a solution as well):

#Include <File.au3>
#Include <Array.au3>
$sFilepath = "MyTextFile.txt"
_FileReadToArray($sFilePath, $aArray)
For $i = 1 to UBound ($bArray_for_comparing) - 1 ; MAYBE $i=0 depends on the structure of $bArray....
    If _ArraySearch ($aArray, $bArray_for_comparing [$i]) > 0 Then
        TriggerEvent...
        ExitLoop ; Maybe
    endif
Next

You can test speed by adding _Timer_Init and _Timer_Diff at your code (see helpfile). So you can test, which is the fastest solution.

;-))

Stefan

Edited July 24, 2009 by 99ojo

[Danny35d]

Try it:

#Include <File.au3>

Dim $aArray
Local $sLookingFor = 'John|Steve|Mary|Lisa'
Local $sSearch = '(?i)^' & $sLookingFor 

$sFilepath = "MyTextFile.txt"
_FileReadToArray($sFilePath, $aArray)

For $i = 1 To $aArray[0]
    If StringRegExp($aArray[$i], $sSearch) Then
        ; TriggerEvent...
        ConsoleWrite($aArray[$i] & @CRLF)      
    endif
Next