463 PurelyFunctional.tv Newsletter

00 Word search.md

Word search

I'm fond of search that is forgiving of small mistakes. If you type a few letters from the word, even if you miss a letter, you should get the word.

Here's a simple, forgiving search function.

Write a function that takes two strings, a needle and a haystack. The function should return true if the needle is found in the haystack, with a few forgiving features:

• If the needle is fully contained in the haystack, it should return true.
• If the needle would be fully contained in the haystack, but for one or more missing letters, it should return true.
• Don't match the needle across whitespace or other non alphanumeric characters.
• Otherwise, return false.

Examples

;;      needle   haystack
(found? "abc" "dddabcfff") ;=> true (direct match)
(found? "abc" "xyzannbffooc") ;=> true (add missing "nn" and "ffoo")
(found? "abc" "a bc") ;=> false (don't match across whitespace)
(found? "xxx" "cxccx") ;=> false (not enough x's)
(found? "" "") ;=> true (trivially so)
(found? "" "aaa") ;=> true (also trivial)

Thanks to this site for the problem idea, where it is rated Very Hard in Java. The problem has been modified.

Please submit your solutions as comments on this gist.

To subscribe: https://purelyfunctional.tv/newsletter/

(defn found? [needle haystack]
  (let [pat (->> (interpose "\\w*" needle)
                 (reduce str)
                 (format "\\w*%s\\w*")
                 re-pattern)]
    (boolean (re-matches pat haystack))))

(comment
  (found? "abc" "dddabcfff") ;; => true
  (found? "abc" "xyzannbffooc") ;; => true
  (found? "abc" "a bc") ;; => false
  (found? "xxx" "cxccx") ;; => false
  (found? "" "") ;; => true
  (found? "" "aaa") ;; => true
  )

(require '[clojure.test :refer [is]])

(defn found? [needle haystack]
  (->> haystack (re-find (re-pattern (apply str (interpose "\\w*" needle)))) boolean))

(is (= true (found? "abc" "dddabcfff"))) ;  (direct match)
(is (= true (found? "abc" "xyzannbffooc"))) ;  (add missing "nn" and "ffoo")
(is (= false (found? "abc" "a bc"))) ;  (don't match across whitespace)
(is (= false (found? "xxx" "cxccx"))) ;  (not enough x's)
(is (= true (found? "" ""))) ; (trivially so)
(is (= true (found? "" "aaa"))) ; (also trivial)
(is (= true (found? "abc" "aaa bbb ccc ab c xaxxbxxxcx")))

(defn found? [needle haystack]
  (let [nvec (vec needle)
        nset (set needle)]
    (->> haystack
         (reduce (fn [acc x]
                   (cond 
                     (= nvec acc)
                     (reduced acc)
                     (#{\space \tab \newline} x)
                     []
                     (nset x)
                     (conj acc x)
                     :else
                     acc))
                 [])
         (= nvec))))