Swift: Finding an Object Property via regex - regex

Question

Target: The following function shall iterate over an array of objects and check a specific property of all objects. This property is a string and shall be matched with a user input via regex. If there's a match the object shall be added to an array which will further be passed to another function.
Problem: I don't know how to set up regex in Swift 3. I'm rather new in Swift at all, so an easily understandable solution would be very helpful :)
How it currently looks like:
func searchItems() -> [Item] {
var matches: [Item] = []
if let input = readLine() {
for item in Storage.storage.items { //items is a list of objects
if let query = //regex with query and item.name goes here {
matches.append(item)
}
}
return matches
} else {
print("Please type in what you're looking for.")
return searchItems()
}
}
This is what Item looks like (snippet):
class Item: CustomStringConvertible {
var name: String = ""
var amount: Int = 0
var price: Float = 0.00
var tags: [String] = []
var description: String {
if self.amount > 0 {
return "\(self.name) (\(self.amount) pcs. in storage) - \(price) €"
} else {
return "\(self.name) (SOLD OUT!!!) - \(price) €"
}
}
init(name: String, price: Float, amount: Int = 0) {
self.name = name
self.price = price
self.amount = amount
}
}
extension Item: Equatable {
static func ==(lhs: Item, rhs: Item) -> Bool {
return lhs.name == rhs.name
}
}
Solved. I just edited this post to get a badge :D

Answer 1

For the purpose of letting the answer to be generic and clear, I will assume that the Item model is:
struct Item {
var email = ""
}
Consider that the output should be a filtered array of items that contains items with only valid email.
For such a functionality, you should use NSRegularExpression:
The NSRegularExpression class is used to represent and apply regular
expressions to Unicode strings. An instance of this class is an
immutable representation of a compiled regular expression pattern and
various option flags.
According to the following function:
func isMatches(_ regex: String, _ string: String) -> Bool {
do {
let regex = try NSRegularExpression(pattern: regex)
let matches = regex.matches(in: string, range: NSRange(location: 0, length: string.characters.count))
return matches.count != 0
} catch {
print("Something went wrong! Error: \(error.localizedDescription)")
}
return false
}
You can decide if the given string does matches the given regex.
Back to the example, consider that you have the following array of Item Model:
let items = [Item(email: "invalid email"),
Item(email: "email#email.com"),
Item(email: "Hello!"),
Item(email: "example#example.net")]
You can get the filtered array by using filter(_:) method:
Returns an array containing, in order, the elements of the sequence
that satisfy the given predicate.
as follows:
let emailRegex = "[A-Z0-9a-z._%+-]+#[A-Za-z0-9.-]+\\.[A-Za-z]{2,}"
let emailItems = items.filter {
isMatches(emailRegex, $0.email)
}
print(emailItems) // [Item(email: "email#email.com"), Item(email: "example#example.net")]
Hope this helped.

Answer 2

You can do the same with filter function
let matches = Storage.storage.items.filter({ $0.yourStringPropertyHere == input })