Check if a string contains element of array with a shell script

Question

I have an array containing various substring

array=(Jack Jessy Harold Ronald Boston Naomi)

and i have a string containing a paragraph

text=" Jack is maried with Jessy, they have 3 children Ronald Boston and Naomi and Harold is the last one "

I want to check using bash if the text contain all the strings that are inside the array but in a different way at the moment I can get them like that

if [[ $text == *${array[0]}* && $text == *${array[1]}* && $text == *${array[2]}* && $text == *${array[3]}* && $text == *${array[4]}* && $text == *${array[5]}*  ]]; then
  echo "It's there!"
fi

I'm using bash but if it's possible to get them with sed or awk i'm open too — StillLearningHowtodoit
– StillLearningHowtodoit, Commented Jan 31, 2020 at 13:48
Does the order matter? do the words in the line appear in the same order as in the array or it can vary? — Inian
– Inian, Commented Jan 31, 2020 at 13:58
no it doesn't mater, i just want to make sure all the value in the array are inside the text — StillLearningHowtodoit
– StillLearningHowtodoit, Commented Jan 31, 2020 at 14:00
This isn't something you should be writing in bash, or any shell. The purpose of a shell is to run other programs, not process data. — chepner
– chepner, Commented Jan 31, 2020 at 14:29
I would say the same thing. Run unit tests from bash, don't write them in bash. — chepner
– chepner, Commented Jan 31, 2020 at 14:40

Philippe · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-31 18:24:07Z

3

A more reusable way:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

array=(Jack Jessy Harold Ronald Boston Naomi)

text=" Jack is maried with Jessy, they have 3 children Ronald Boston and Naomi and Harold is the last one "

check(){
    local str string=" $1 "; shift
    MAPFILE=()
    for str; do
        pattern="\b$str\b" # Word search, excluding [Jacky], for example
        [[ $string =~ $pattern ]] || MAPFILE+=($str)
    done
    test ${#MAPFILE[@]} = 0
}

if  check "$text" "${array[@]}"; then
    echo "All in"
else
    echo "Not all in : [${MAPFILE[@]}]"
fi

edited Jan 31, 2020 at 18:24

answered Jan 31, 2020 at 14:09

Philippe

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1 Comment

StillLearningHowtodoit Over a year ago

This is realy good, is this possible to get the item that we didn't found ?

Ivan · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-31 18:09:01Z

2

Try this. Loop through your array and mach $item with $text

array=(Jack Jessy Harold Ronald Boston Naomi Bill Marry)
text=" Jack is maried with Jessy, they have 3 children Ronald Boston and Naomi and Harold is the last one "

$ for item in ${array[@]}; { [[ "$text" =~ $item ]] && echo yep $item is here || echo nop can\'t find $item; }
yep Jack is here
yep Jessy is here
yep Harold is here
yep Ronald is here
yep Boston is here
yep Naomi is here
nop can't find Bill
nop can't find Marry

Update, to summarize results

err=0; for item in ${array[@]}; { [[ "$text" =~ $item ]] || ((err++)); }; ((err>0)) && echo someone is missing || echo all there

Or like so to see who is missing

for item in ${array[@]}; { [[ "$text" =~ $item ]] || missing+=($item); }; [[ ${missing[@]} ]] && echo can\'t find ${missing[@]} || echo all there

edited Jan 31, 2020 at 18:09

answered Jan 31, 2020 at 14:02

Ivan

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1 Comment

StillLearningHowtodoit Over a year ago

This is awesome, but is it possible to only return Okey if all are there or no if not ?

Ed Morton · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-31 19:18:13Z

A shell is an environment from which to call tools, not a tool to manipulate text. The guys who invented shell also invented awk for shell to call to manipulate text. The awk script included below will work clearly, robustly, efficiently, and portably using any awk in any shell on every UNIX box:

$ cat tst.sh
#!/bin/env bash

checkWordsInSentence() {
    awk -v wordsStr="${array[*]}" -v sentenceStr="$text" 'BEGIN {
        split(sentenceStr,words,/[^[:alpha:]]+/)
        for (i in words) {
            sentence[words[i]]
        }
        split(wordsStr,words)
        for (i in words) {
            word = words[i]
            totWords++
            if (word in sentence) {
                status[word] = "present"
                numPresent++
            }
            else {
                status[word] = "absent"
            }
        }
        if (totWords == numPresent) {
            printf "All %d words (%s) present\n", totWords, wordsStr
        }
        else {
            printf "%d of %d words (%s) present\n", numPresent, totWords, wordsStr
            for (word in status) {
                print word, status[word]
            }
        }
    }'
}

array=(Jack Jessy Harold Ronald Boston Naomi)
text=" Jack is maried with Jessy, they have 3 children Ronald Boston and Naomi and Harold is the last one "
checkWordsInSentence

echo '----'

array=(Jack Jessy Harold Bob Ronald Boston Naomi Karen)
text=" Jack is maried with Jessy, they have 3 children Ronald Boston and Naomi and Harold is the last one "
checkWordsInSentence

.

$ ./tst.sh
All 6 words (Jack Jessy Harold Ronald Boston Naomi) present
----
6 of 8 words (Jack Jessy Harold Bob Ronald Boston Naomi Karen) present
Karen absent
Ronald present
Bob absent
Jack present
Boston present
Naomi present
Jessy present
Harold present

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