JavaScript - Is there a way to check if a string includes a keyword but only that keyword?

Question

I'm currently using the string.includes() method to check for the keyword 'rally' in a string. But if I have the text 'Can I have a rally?', it will respond the same as 'Am I morally wrong?'. Is there a way to do this?

You can use a regular expression or some other method to determine that the characters before and after the word 'rally' are either a space, punctuation, the beginning of the string, or the end of the string. That makes sure that the word rally stands on its own and is not a substring of some other word. — Shilly, Jan 18 '18 at 12:56

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 18 '18 at 12:59

1

try this

 'Can I have a rally?'.match(/(\w+)/g).indexOf("rally") !== -1  // will return true


 'Am I morally wrong?'.match(/(\w+)/g).indexOf("rally") !== -1 // will return false

answered Jan 18 '18 at 12:59

Aswin Ramesh

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score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

0

edit Using regular expressions

let text = "Am I mo rally wrong";

function searchText(searchOnString, searchText) {
  searchText = searchText.replace(/[-\/\\^$*+?.()|[\]{}]/g, '\\$&');
  return searchOnString.match(new RegExp("\\b"+searchText+"\\b", "i")) != null;
}

console.log(searchText(text, "rally"));

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

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answered Jan 18 '18 at 13:00

Evans M.

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This will work badly if the `rally` is the first or last word in the sentence. – Greg Jan 18 '18 at 13:04
See the edit, using escaped regular expressions – Evans M. Jan 18 '18 at 13:21

krezus · Answer 3 · 2018-01-18T13:31:05.807

0

maybe you just add space. So morally gives false result. This checks the words possible each position into sentence also whole string is "rally".

var string = "Can I have rally";

console.log(string==="rally" ? true : false || string.includes(' rally') || string.includes('rally ') || string.includes(' rally '));

edited Jan 18 '18 at 13:31

answered Jan 18 '18 at 13:01

krezus

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this will be a false-negative if the whole string was 'rally' – Greg Jan 18 '18 at 13:04
See the edit@meta – krezus Jan 18 '18 at 13:32
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Yeah, this would work. Still https://stackoverflow.com/a/48321982/299774 is much cleaner. – Greg Jan 18 '18 at 17:03

JavaScript - Is there a way to check if a string includes a keyword but only that keyword?

3 Answers3

edit Using regular expressions