Given a field/string like 'G,H,1,AA,T,AAA,1,E,A,H,....'. The characters can be in any combination/order.
How do I search that string and return True when searching for just 'A' or 'AA'?
i.e. If doing a search for say 'A', it should only find the 'A' between the E & H.
Regards & TIA,
Ian
You can simply split your string into an array by your delimiter and search in that array, e.g.
function FindItem(const List, Item: string): Boolean;
var
SArr: TArray<string>;
S: string;
begin
Result := False;
//Separators could also be a parameter
SArr := List.Split([',']);
for S in SArr do
begin
//use S.Trim if needed
//use AnsiSameText(S, Item) for case insensitive check
if Item = S then
Exit(True);
end;
end;
If you need to search for multiple items in your data, you might want to sort the array and use a binary search.
TArray.Sort<string>(SArr);
Result := TArray.BinarySearch(SArr, Item, Tmp);
Another approach would be using regular expressions with word boundaries to search for whole words only
Result := TRegex.IsMatch(List, '\bA\b');
Split this string into a list, for example with TStringList.CommaText (alternatively, into an array with StrUtils.SplitString()).
Then, just walk through the list and check every string (or use TStrings.IndexOf() - note: it uses CaseSensitive property, as Remy mentioned in comments).
If you are going to make many queries for the same list - sort it and use an effective binary search (TStringList.Find()).
Related
Is is posssible to use customSort on a TStringList using the Name from the Name/Value pairs
I was currently using a TStringList to sort one value in each pos. I now need to add additional data with this value and therefor I am now using the TStringList as Name/Values
My current CompareSort is:
function StrCmpLogicalW(sz1, sz2: PWideChar): Integer; stdcall;
external 'shlwapi.dll' name 'StrCmpLogicalW';
function MyCompare(List: TStringList; Index1, Index2: Integer): Integer;
begin
Result := StrCmpLogicalW(PWideChar(List[Index1]), PWideChar(List[Index2]));
end;
Usage:
StringList.CustomSort(MyCompare);
is there a way to modify this so that it sorts based on the Name of the name value pairs?
Or, is there another way?
function MyCompare(List: TStringList; Index1, Index2: Integer): Integer;
begin
Result := StrCmpLogicalW(PWideChar(List.Names[Index1]), PWideChar(List.Names[Index2]));
end;
But actually, I think yours should work as well, since the string itself starts with the name anyway, so sorting by the entire string implicitly sort it by name.
To solve this you use the Names indexed property which is described in the documentation like this:
Indicates the name part of strings that are name-value pairs.
When the list of strings for the TStrings object includes strings that
are name-value pairs, read Names to access the name part of a string.
Names is the name part of the string at Index, where 0 is the first
string, 1 is the second string, and so on. If the string is not a
name-value pair, Names contains an empty string.
So, instead of List[Index1] you simply need to use List.Names[Index1]. Your compare function thus becomes:
function MyCompare(List: TStringList; Index1, Index2: Integer): Integer;
begin
Result := StrCmpLogicalW(
PChar(List.Names[Index1]),
PChar(List.Names[Index2])
);
end;
(Translated from German to Englisch)
I need help in this exercise :
Thread: String processing The user can make simple changes to an input sentence.
conditions
The program displays a menu for the user to select the following action. This is also displayed again after the action has been completed until the user terminates the program (a loop is therefore required).
The menu contains the following items, which should be executed when the specified letter is entered:
A. Enter the sentence
B. Determine the number of words
C. Determine the number of characters that are less than their sequence character
D. Replace all the words in the sentence with their uppercase initials
X. end
If the user enters a different letter, nothing happens or the menu is output again.
If the menu item A is selected, a prompt is issued to enter a set which is read into a string variable. This variable can not be changed by the actions of menu items B, C and D! Possibly. A copy of the set has to be prepared beforehand in another string variable.
In menu point B the number of all words in the block is to be counted. For simplicity, you can assume that there is always one space between two words. At the beginning and end of the sentence there are no spaces. The number of words is output after the calculation (e.g., "The set is 4 words").
If the user executes menu item C, the set is traversed character-by-character, and for each character it is checked whether it is smaller than its trailing character. Here is a simple character comparison (you can also write directly something like '1' <'d'). The number of characters so found is then output (e.g., "13 characters found in the sentence less than the trailing character").
In menu item D, the sentence is traversed and every word contained in it is replaced by its upper-case initial character. The capitalization is of course only made if the first character is a letter, otherwise the character remains unchanged. You can assume that the sentence never starts or ends with a space. Between two words there is always exactly one space and so it should be between the initial letters. For example, from "123 good mood" becomes "1 G L".
It is not permissible here to build up a completely new string piece by piece! Instead, you should work in a loop on a copy of the original sentence with pos, copy, length, delete and insert! It is also forbidden to "gather" the initial characters all at the beginning or end of the string; These should be inserted directly into the string at the position of the corresponding word!
Furthermore, a string can not be accessed at menu point D, because the work with string routines is to be practised explicitly here. Menu items B, C and D may only be selectable if a record has already been entered. Otherwise nothing happens or a fault message is entered when entering B, C or D in the menu and the menu is output again.
Each call to the menu items B, C or D will always work on the original set entered by the user and not on a set that has already been altered by previously executed menu items!
By entering the menu item A again, the entered block can be overwritten by a new one.
With an 'X' the user can terminate the program.
Use wherever it is the predefined string functions and do not write it yourself with difficulty loops, etc.! However, the use of the strreplace or reverseString functions is forbidden!
Here's my work till now, I only have problems with part D:
program Project2;
{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}
{$R *.res}
uses
System.SysUtils;
const
lz = ' ';
var
Satz: string;
Buchstabe: char;
i, p, j, zaehler2, index, count: integer;
writeln('A) Write Sentence');
readln(Satz);
'D':
begin
index := 2;
insert(lz, Satz, length(Satz)+1);
count := (pos(lz,Satz));
repeat
delete(Satz, index,(count - index));
index := index + 2;
count := pos(lz,copy(Satz,index,(length(Satz)-index)))+index-1;
until ;
writeln(uppercase(Satz));
end
I'm glad you've found your own solution, well done!
While you've been doing that, I've been writing the answer below and, as I
have finished it, I thought I'd post it here to show you another way
to go about the problem of extracting words from a string. There are
dozens of ways of doing that task, but I hope the one I've used is fairly
easy to follow.
Maybe the reason you were having a problem with this is that your string-indexing
expressions are a bit too complicated. I bet if you come back to your code in 6 months
it will take you a while to figure out what it is supposed to be doing and longer
to tell whether it is actually doing it. The key to avoiding problems like that
is to break your code up into chucks which are easier to follow and easier
to test. So instead of just telling you what your repeat condition should be,
I'll show you a way which is easier to follow.
The first thing to do is to extract a singe word from the input. So, first thing
I've written is a function, ExtractFirstWord which returns the first word in
the input string, whether or not the input includes spaces, and also returns
a Remainder string which is what is left or the input string after the first
word (and any spaces immediately following it have been removed). This is done
using some simple while loops which are coded to skip over the leading spaces
and then build a string from the non-space characters which follow.
Code
const
lz = ' ';
var
Satz: string;
FirstWord : String;
Remainder : String;
function ExtractFirstWord(const InputStr : String; var Remainder : String) : String;
var
P : Integer;
WordStart : Integer;
begin
Result := '';
P := 1;
// The following skips over any spaces at the start of InputStr
while (P <= Length(InputStr)) and (InputStr[P] = lz) do
Inc(P);
// Now we know where the first word starts
WordStart := P;
// Now we can get the first word, if there is one
while (P <= Length(InputStr)) and (InputStr[P] <> lz) do
Inc(P);
Result := Copy(InputStr, WordStart, P - WordStart);
Remainder := Copy(InputStr, P, Length(InputStr));
// the following is one way to remove spaces at the start of Remainder
while (Length(Remainder) > 0) and (Remainder[1] = lz) do
Delete(Remainder, 1, Length(lz));
// instead you could do something simlar to the first `while` loop above
end;
begin
Satz := ' cat dog ';
repeat
FirstWord := ExtractFirstWord(Satz, Remainder);
FirstWord := UpperCase(FirstWord);
Satz := Remainder;
writeln('First word: ', FirstWord, ' remainder: ', Remainder);
until Remainder = '';
readln;
end.
This particular way of doing it is not an ideal fit with the other requirements
specified in your task but should be easily adaptable to them. E.g, the upper-casing of words could be done "in place" on the input string by upper-casing the current character of it in the second While loop.
Btw, if you are using Delphi or Free Pascal/Lazarus, there is a much simpler
way of extracting the words from a string. It uses a TStringList. Try
looking it up in the online help and have a thing about how you might use it
to do the task.
I need to delete a substring which is arbitrary each time. For example:
..\HDTP\System\*.u should become ..\System\*.u and/or ..\New Vision\Textures\*.utx should become ..\Textures\*.utx. More specifically: Ignore the first three characters, delete whatever comes after, until the next \ character (including that character), leave the rest of the string intact. Could you, please, help me with this? I know, I have the worst explaining skills in the whole world, if something isn't clear, I'll try to explain again.
This is a little bit of copy and split work for Inno Setup but I have here a function for you with some extra comments.
Read it carefully as it isn't tested properly and if you have to edit it you will
have to know what it is doing ;)
function FormatPathString(str : String) : String;
var
firstThreeChars : String;
charsAfterFirstThree : String;
tempString : String;
finalString : String;
dividerPosition : Integer;
begin
firstThreeChars := Copy(str, 0, 3); //First copy the first thee character which we want to keep
charsAfterFirstThree := Copy(str,4,Length(str)); //copy the rest of the string into a new variable
dividerPosition := Pos('\', charsAfterFirstThree); //find the position of the following '\'
tempString := Copy(charsAfterFirstThree,dividerPosition+1,Length(charsAfterFirstThree)-dividerPosition); //Take everything after the position of '\' (dividerPosition+1) and copy it into a temporary string
finalString := firstThreeChars+tempString; //put your first three characters and your temporary string together
Result := finalString; //return your final string
end;
And this is how you would call it
FormatPathString('..\New Vision\Textures\*.utx');
You will have to rename the function and the var's so that it will match your program but I think this will help you.
I've been searching for days on how to do this, and nothing is exactly what I need to do (or I just don't understand how to implement the solution).
What I need to do is parse a string, which is a street address, into a TStringList, and then set those strings from the list to variables I can then pass to the rest of the program. I already have the list working ok:
var
AddressList : TStringList;
i : integer;
begin
AddressList := TStringList.Create;
AddressList.Delimiter := ' ';
AddressList.DelimitedText := RawAddressStr; //RawAddressStr is parsed from another file and the string result is something like '1234 Dark Souls Lane Wyoming, MI 48419'
for i := 0 to AddressList.Count-1 do
AddressList.Strings[i]; //Not sure what to do here
The issue is that the address isn't always the same length. The address will sometimes be like '1234 Dark Souls Two Lane Wyoming...' or '1234 Dark Lane Wyoming...'
So I need to be able to use this TStringList to set the Zip, State and City into variables for later use. I would use TStringList.Find, but the ZIP code isn't always the same. Is there a way to get the last string and then go backwards from there? (Going backwards because once I get the City, State ZIP I can remove that from the RawAddressStr and then set the rest to the address string.)
Thanks.
Edit, here's the code I needed (thanks to below comments):
AddressList := TStringList.Create;
AddressList.Delimiter := ' ';
AddressList.DelimitedText := RawAddressStr;
for i := 0 to AddressList.Count-1 do
LastIndex := AddressList.Count - 1;
ZipStr := AddressList[LastIndex];
StateStr := AddressList[LastIndex - 1];
CityStr := AddressList[LastIndex - 2];
Now I can use these with StringReplace to take out the City, State Zip from the full address string, and set that as the Address string to use.
I am a little bit unsure of exactly what you're looking for since you ask
of how to get the last string of your StringList,
then at the end of the question you ask
Is there a way to get the last string and then go backwards from
there?
If you want to get the last string of a StringList you can use
var AddressList : TStringList;
MyString: string;
begin
MyString := AddressList.Last; //this...
MyString := AddressList.Strings[AddressList.Count-1]; //...and this is essentially the same thing
end;
if you would like to for-loop in reverse or backwards you should write:
for i := AddressList.Count-1 downto 0 do
AddressList.Strings[i]; //Not sure what to do here
Notice that it says "DOWNTO" and not "TO".
Now, if you would like to stop at a specific string, lets say the ZIP code,
you need to make your software understand what it is reading.
Which one of the delimited strings is the City?
Which one is the address?
To the software, a string is a string, it doesn't know, or even care what it is reading.
So I would like to suggest that you have a database of citys which it can compare the strings
of AddressList t,o and see if there is a match.
You could also implement some logic in to your algorithm.
If you know that the last string of your delimited AdressList string always is the City-name,
then you know you have the city name right there which you can use.
If you know that everything between the ZIP code and the City Name is the Street Address,
then just copy everything between the ZIP and the City-name and use that as a Street-name information.
I am trying to write an Ada equivalent to the split() method in Java or C++. I am to intake a string and an integer and output two seperate string values. For example:
split of "hello" and 2 would return:
"The first part is he
and the second part is llo"
The code I have is as follows:
-- split.adb splits an input string about a specified position.
--
-- Input: Astring, a string,
-- Pos, an integer.
-- Precondition: pos is in Astring'Range.
-- Output: The substrings Astring(Astring'First..Pos) and
-- Astring(Pos+1..Astring'Last).
--------------------------------------------------------------
with Ada.Text_IO, Ada.Integer_Text_IO, Ada.Strings.Fixed;
use Ada.Text_IO, Ada.Integer_Text_IO, Ada.Strings.Fixed;
procedure Split is
EMPTY_STRING : String := " ";
Astring, Part1, Part2 : String := EMPTY_STRING;
Pos, Chars_Read : Natural;
------------------------------------------------
-- Split() splits a string in two.
-- Receive: The_String, the string to be split,
-- Position, the split index.
-- PRE: 0 < Position <= The_String.length().
-- (Ada arrays are 1-relative by default)
-- Passback: First_Part - the first substring,
-- Last_Part - the second substring.
------------------------------------------------
function Split(TheString : in String ; Pos : in Integer; Part1 : out String ; Part2 : out String) return String is
begin
Move(TheString(TheString'First .. Pos), Part1);
Move(TheString(Pos .. TheString'Last), Part2);
return Part1, Part2;
end Split;
begin -- Prompt for input
Put("To split a string, enter the string: ");
Get_Line(Astring, Chars_Read);
Put("Enter the split position: ");
Get(Pos);
Split(Astring, Pos, Part1, Part2);
Put("The first part is ");
Put_Line(Part1);
Put(" and the second part is ");
Put_Line(Part2);
end Split;
The main part I am having trouble with is returning the two separate string values and in general the whole split() function. Any pointers or help is appreciated. Thank you
Instead of a function, consider making Split a procedure having two out parameters, as you've shown. Then decide if Pos is the last index of Part1 or the first index of Part2; I've chosen the latter.
procedure Split(
TheString : in String; Pos : in Integer;
Part1 : out String; Part2 : out String) is
begin
Move(TheString(TheString'First .. Pos - 1), Part1);
Move(TheString(Pos .. TheString'Last), Part2);
end Split;
Note that String indexes are Positive:
type String is array(Positive range <>) of Character;
subtype Positive is Integer range 1 .. Integer'Last;
Doing this is so trivial, I'm not sure why you'd bother making a routine for it. Just about any routine you could come up with is going to be much harder to use anyway.
Front_Half : constant String := Original(Original'first..Index);
Back_Half : constant String := Original(Index+1..Original'last);
Done.
Note that static Ada strings are very different than strings in other languages like C or Java. Due to their static nature, they are best built either inline like I've done above, or as return values from functions. Since functions cannot return more than one value, a single unified "split" routine is just plain not a good fit for static Ada string handling. Instead, you should either do what I did above, call the corresponding routines from Ada.Strings.Fixed (Head and Tail), or switch to using Ada.Strings.Unbounded.Unbounded_String instead of String.
The latter is probably the easiest option, if you want to keep your Java mindset about string handling. If you want to really learn Ada though, I'd highly suggest you learn to deal with static fixed Strings the Ada way.
From looking over your code you really need to read up in general on the String type, because you're dragging in a lot of expectations in from other languages on how to work with them--which aren't going to work with them. Ada's String type is not one of its more flexible features, in that they are always fixed length. While there are ways of working around the limitations in a situation such as you're describing, it would be much easier to simply use Unbounded_Strings.
The input String to your function could remain of type String, which will adjust to the length of the string that you provide to it. The two output Unbounded_Strings then are simply set to the sliced string components after invoking To_Unbounded_String() on each of them.
Given the constraints of your main program, with all strings bounded by the size of EMPTY_STRING. the procedure with out parameters is the correct approach, with the out parameter storage allocated by the caller (on the stack as it happens)
That is not always the case, so it is worth knowing another way. The problem is how to deal with data whose size is unknown until runtime.
Some languages can only offer runtime allocation on the heap (via "new" or "malloc") and can only access the data via pointers, leaving a variety of messy problems including accesses off the end of the data (buffer overruns) or releasing the storage correctly (memory leaks, accessing freed pointers etc)
Ada will allow this method too, but it is usually unnecessary and strongly discouraged. Unbounded_String is a wrapper over this method, while Bounded_String avoids heap allocation where you can accept an upper bound on the string length.
But also, Ada allows variable sized data structures to be created on the stack; the technique just involves creating a new stack frame and declaring new variables where you need to, with "declare". The new variables can be initialised with function calls.
Each function can only return one object, but that object's size can be determined at runtime. So either "Split" can be implemented as 2 functions, returning Part1 or Part2, or it can return a record containing both strings. It would be a record with two size discriminants, so I have chosen the simpler option here. The function results are usually built in place (avoids copying).
The flow in your example would require two nested Declare blocks; if "Pos" could be identified first, they could be collapsed into one...
procedure Split is
function StringBefore( Input : String; Pos : Natural) return String is
begin
return Input(1 .. Pos-1);
end StringBefore;
function StringFrom ...
begin
Put("To split a string, enter the string: ");
declare
AString : String := Get_Line;
Pos : Natural;
begin
Put("Enter the split position: ");
Get(Pos);
declare
Part1 : String := StringBefore(AString, Pos);
Part2 : String := StringFrom(AString, Pos);
begin
Put("The first part is ");
Put_Line(Part1);
Put(" and the second part is ");
Put_Line(Part2);
end; -- Part1 and Part2 are now out of scope
end; -- AString is now out of scope
end Split;
This can obviously be wrapped in a loop, with different size strings each time, with no memory management issues.
Look at the Head and Tail functions in Ada.Strings.Fixed.
function Head (Source : in String; Count : in Natural; Pad : in Character := Space) return String;
function Tail (Source : in String; Count : in Natural; Pad : in Character := Space)
return String;
Here's an approach that just uses slices of the string.
with Ada.Text_IO; use Ada.Text_IO;
with Ada.Strings.Fixed; use Ada.Strings.Fixed;
procedure Main is
str : String := "one,two,three,four,five,six,seven,eight";
pattern : String := ",";
idx, b_idx : Integer;
begin
b_idx := 1;
for i in 1..Ada.Strings.Fixed.Count ( Source => str, Pattern => pattern ) loop
idx := Ada.Strings.Fixed.Index( Source => str(b_idx..str'Last), Pattern => pattern);
Put_Line(str(b_idx..idx-1)); -- process string slice in any way
b_idx := idx + pattern'Length;
end loop;
-- process last string
Put_Line(str(b_idx..str'Last));
end Main;