CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javanetbeans-7
Guy Stimpson
Guy Stimpson

Reputation: 87

How to exclude condition from if statement in Java

I'm trying so search a number of lines of a text file using a user input (string 'question'), but I need to exclude some common terms as they bring up erroneous results as well as correct ones. 

 try {
            readName file = new readName(file_name);
            String[] aryLines = file.OpenFile();//OPEN  KNOWLEDGE BASE

            //SEARCH EACH ENTRY IN KNOWLEDGE BASE
            for (int i = 0; i < aryLines.length; i = i + 1) {
                String delims = "[ ]+";//SPLIT ITEMS INTO TOKENS
                //CREATE ARRAY OF TOKENS 
                String[] tokens = aryLines[i].split(delims);

                //SEARCH THROUGH TOKENS
                for (int j = 0; j < tokens.length; j = j + 1){
                    //MATCH QUESTIONS AGAINST TOKENS AND EXCLUSIONS
                    if (question.matches("(.*)" + tokens[j] + "(.*)")) {
                        System.out.println(aryLines[i]);

                    }
                }
            }
        } catch (Exception e) {
            System.out.println(e);
        }

I have tried putting in 

 if (question.matches("(.*)" + tokens[j] + "(.*)") 
         && !question.matches(*excluded word*))

But in that case, it produces no result when the search question is entered. Both versions work correctly when the excluded term in omitted from the search question.

I have hunted around on here and in other places, but nothing's working for me so far. Any help much appreciated!

This is a sample of my knowledge base

Dogs have tails 
Donkeys have no humps

If I search for no tails, it outputs both lines, but I would like to force it to exclude no from the search so that it only returns Dogs have tails

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2723

Answers (1)

Taylor Hx
Taylor Hx

Reputation: 2833

I think this is what you are after:

//THIS IS AN EXAMPLE KNOWLEDGE BASE
String[] aryLines = {"Dogs have tails","Donkeys have no humps"};

//THIS IS THE QUESTION SUPPLIED BY POSTER
String question = "no tails";

//IT SEEMS THAT POSTER WANTS TO EXCLUDE CERTAIN WORDS FROM THE SEARCH
String exclude = "no";

//REMOVE ALL OCCURRENCES OF THE EXCLUDE STRING IN QUESTION
question = question.replaceAll(exclude, "");

//FOR EACH TOKEN (FROM KNOWLEDGE BASE)
for(String token : aryLines) {
    //MATCH QUESTION AGAINST TOKENS
    if (token.matches("(.*)" + question + "(.*)")) {
        System.out.println(token);
    }
}

In this example, I remove all occurrences of the excluded string in the question. I then compare the tokens to the regex: .*<question>.*.

Since the excluded strings have been removed prior to the comparison, they will no longer affect the outcome of the match, as the code will compare Dogs have tails and Donkeys have no humps to .*tails.*.

Upvotes: 1

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