how to check if a string contains a substring from an array of strings in JavaScript

Question

I'm still learning JavaScript but I just can't seem to find a way to see if a string contains a substring.

Basically I have some Titles of some individuals and I want to see if the Title contains strings like "President" or "Sr" in the title this is what i have so far but does not seem to be working.

var title = "President of Sales";
var arrayOfTitles = ["President","Chief","VP","SVP","Director","Manager","Mrg","Sr","Senior","Executive Assistant","Principle Architect","GM","Technical Advisor"];

var re = new RegExp(arrayOfTitles.join("|"),"i");

for(i = 0; i < arrayOfTitles.length; i++){
        if ( re.test(gr.title)){
            return; 
                }
     }

However this code will not work with String likes "Jr VP" or "President of Sales". Is there a way to build an array of Regex of these strings?

any help would be great thanks

You are looking for exact matches, so don't use regex, use indexOf. If you want a case-insensitive search, apply toLowerCase on string and keywords. And, unless the above is in a function context, return doesn't make much sense there. Use break to leave the loop, and set a flag beforehand if you're interested in the positive or negative outcome of the whole test. — C3roe
– C3roe, Commented May 25, 2017 at 3:28
Using a single regex built from the arrayOfTitles should work, but if you do that you don't need to loop over the same array. Try re.test(title) without the loop - that worked fine for me. — nnnnnn
– nnnnnn, Commented May 25, 2017 at 3:30
Im looking for something that will match anything with these keywords in them — agarc
– agarc, Commented May 25, 2017 at 4:44

alessandrio · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-25 03:52:02Z

1

You do not need to run a loop

var title = "President of Sales";
var arrayOfTitles = ["President","Chief","VP","SVP","Director","Manager","Mrg","Sr","Senior","Executive Assistant","Principle Architect","GM","Technical Advisor"];

var regex = new RegExp(arrayOfTitles.join("|"), "i");
//The regex will return true if found in the array
if ( regex.test(title) ){
  console.log("has");
}

answered May 25, 2017 at 3:52

alessandrio

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agarc Over a year ago

Will this work for any String that contains on of the Strings in the Array?

Meligy · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-25 04:00:18Z

1

How about something simple like :

var title = "President of Sales";
var arrayOfTitles = ["President","Chief","VP","SVP","Director","Manager","Mrg","Sr","Senior","Executive Assistant","Principle Architect","GM","Technical Advisor"];
var matches = (function() {
  for(var i=0; i < arrayOfTitles.length; i++) {
	if(title.indexOf(arrayOfTitles[i]) > -1) { return true; }
  }
  return false;
}());

answered May 25, 2017 at 4:00

Meligy

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Comments

Ben Schmeltzer · Accepted Answer · 2017-06-04 08:12:03Z

0

You can also use the includes() function, instead of indexOf().

     var title = "President of Sales";
       var arrayOfTitles = ["President","Chief","VP","SVP","Director","Manager","Mrg","Sr","Senior","Executive Assistant","Principle Architect","GM","Technical Advisor"];
       var matches = (function() {
         for(var i=0; i < arrayOfTitles.length; i++) {
               if(title.includes(arrayOfTitles[i])) { return true; }
         }
         return false;
       }());

answered Jun 4, 2017 at 8:12

Ben Schmeltzer

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