How to select whole words from a string that appears in an array?

Question

I want check a long string against array of words and select the matching words. The words could be multi-words such as or This is or more. This is what I have so far.

str = "This is a demo text for demo..."
w = ["This is", "to", "is", "for demo"]     
w.select{ |w| str.include?w } #=>["This is", "is", "for demo"]

but in this I don't want my result to have "in", "get" etc

str = "This is a demo text for demo together within..."
w = ["This is", "to", "is", "for demo", "in", "get"]    
w.select{ |w| str.include?w } #=> ["This is", "to", "is", "for demo", "in", "get"]

str.include?w is doing what it is supposed to do. Are there any alternatives?

That's not enough, Alok. SO wants 'in' excluded when str = '...within the...' and included when str = '...jumped in'. — Cary Swoveland
– Cary Swoveland, Commented Mar 3, 2014 at 22:16

steenslag · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-03 16:44:15Z

5

str = "This is a demo text for demo..."
w = ["This is", "to", "is", "for demo"]     
p w.select{|w|str =~ /\b#{w}\b/ }

The \b in the regexp is a word boundary; the #{w} is interpolation, just like in strings.

answered Mar 3, 2014 at 16:44

steenslag

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2 Comments

Alok Anand Over a year ago

@cary Swoveland perfect answer sir

Bala Over a year ago

This is so neat! very beautiful!

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