Check string for recurrence of specific character - c++

How can I search inside of a string for more than one occurrence of a specific character (in this case a period .)?
I have already tried adapting the answer from this question, but I think I am doing it wrong.
std::string periodCheck = i.convert_to<std::string>();
char subString = '.';
std::size_t pos = periodCheck.find(subString, 0);
int counter;
while(pos != std::string::npos){
counter++;
if(counter > 1){
std::cout << "\nError: Multiple periods\n";
return false;
}
}
The first line simply converts from a Boost multi-precision cpp_dec_float (named i) to a string. I know that this part of the code works, because I use it effectively elsewhere in the program.
I am trying to check if a string contains more than one period. If the string has more than one period in it, the function returns false.
How can I achieve this?

If you find a period, then your next logical step would also be to search again, starting with the next character position.
However, if you review your code, you will not be able to find any place where it is actually searching again. There's no call to find() inside the while loop.
A while loop is not required at all. All you need to do is to call find() a second time, specifying pos+1 as the starting position for the second search, and check the results again. If you find another period, you can call it a wrap. Nothing is to be gained by searching for any remaining periods in the string. You have your answer.
std::size_t pos = periodCheck.find(subString, 0);
if (pos != std::string::npos)
{
pos=periodCheck.find(subString, pos+1);
if (pos != std::string::npos)
return false;
}

Related

How to find a character in a string?

I have already checked topics similar to this one but no one has been able to solve this problem.
So, I have to look for a character inside a string but it doesn't seem to work.
if (tracciatonuovos.find('T'))
{
nterminale++;
}
The counter does not increase. But if I try to find an empty space, it counts for me, and yet the string is full
First value is string, second is length of string, and third is the value of counter "nterminale".
use the find function from the std::string class
std::string mystr = "Some String with T";
size_t apos = mystr.find("T");
Read more about it here
If you want to find the first occurrence use :
find_first_of
And if you want to repeatedly find all occurrences of a specific character you will also need to specify a search start position and will need to write a loop say something like :
size_t pos = 0;
while((pos = mystr.find(whatever, pos)) != std::string::npos)
{
pos +=1;
// and your other logic here
}

Cannot get second while to loop properly

I'm making a function that removes elements from a string. However, I cant seem to get both of my loops to work together. The first while loop works flawlessly. I looked into it and I believe it might be because when "find_last_of" isn't found, it still returns a value (which is throwing off my loop). I haven't been able to figure out how I can fix it. Thank you.
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
string foo(string word) {
string compare = "!##$";
string alphabet = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ";
while(word.find_first_of(compare) < word.find_first_of(alphabet)) {
int position = word.find_first_of(compare);
word = word.substr(++position);
}
while(word.find_last_of(compare) > word.find_last_of(alphabet)){
int size = word.length();
word = word.substr(0, --size);
}
return word;
}
int main() {
cout << foo("!!hi!!");
return 0;
}
I wrote it like this so compound words would not be affected. Desired result: "hi"
It's not entirely clear what you're trying to do, but how about replacing the second loop with this:
string::size_type p = word.find_last_not_of(compare);
if(p != string::npos)
word = word.substr(0, ++p);
It's not clear if you just want to trim certain characters from the front and back of word or if you want to remove every one of a certain set of characters from word no matter where they are. Based on the first sentence of your question, I'll assume you want to do the latter: remove all characters in compare from word.
A better strategy would be to more directly examine each character to see if it needs to be removed, and if so, do so, all in one pass through word. Since compare is quite short, something like this is probably good enough:
// Rewrite word by removing all characters in compare (and then erasing the
// leftover space, if any, at the end). See std::remove_if() docs.
word.erase(std::remove_if(word.begin(),
word.end(),
// Returns true if a character is to be removed.
[&](const char ch) {
return compare.find(ch) != compare.npos;
}),
word.end());
BTW, I'm not sure why there is both a compare and alphabet string in your example. It seems you would only need to define one or the other, and not both. A character is either one to keep or one to remove.

Check if string contains other string elements

I am trying to check if string contains elements from different string in specific order.
For example:
large string: thisisstring
small string: hssg
it should return true.
I only figured out how to check if string contains whole other string but not parts.
This is the code that I wrote for checking for now:
if ([largestring rangeOfString:smallstring].location != NSNotFound) {
printf("contains");
}
If there are no more characters to search for from the small string, return true.
Starting from the position after the most recently found character in the large string, do a linear search for the first character from the small string that has not yet been searched for.
If the character was not found, return false.
Start back at 1.
There's no easy way to do this, at least, no built in way that I know of. You would have to iterate through each letter of your small string and find the first letter that matches your large string.
Each time you find a matching letter, you loop to the next smallstring letter, but instead only begin searching at the index after you found the previous letter.
EDIT:
some pseudo code, untested, may have syntax errors:
int foundChar = 0;
for (int l = 0; l < strlen(smallstring); l++)
{
bool found = false;
for (; foundChar < strlen(largestring); foundChar++)
{
if (smallstring[l] == largestring[foundChar])
{
// We break here because we found a matching letter.
// Notice that foundChar is still in scope so we preserve
// its value for the next check.
found = true;
foundChar++; // Increment so the next search starts with the next letter.
break;
}
}
// If we get down here, that means we've searched all of the letters
// and found no match, we can result with a failure to find the match.
if (found == false)
{
return false;
}
}
// If we get here, it means every loop resulted in a valid match.
return true;

string.find() doesn't return -1

The code below is simple. As I know, if string::find() didn't find matches it returns -1. But for some reasons the code below doesn't work. Everytime I run this code I get endless loop. Thank you for help!
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
string text;
text = "asdasd ijk asdasd";
string toReplace = "ijk";
cout<<text<<endl;
int counter = 0;
while ( text.find(toReplace) != -1)
counter++;
cout<<counter<<endl;
system("pause");
}
Aside from the other answers which are completely correct, I just wanted to add that your while loop would have produced an endless loop anyway. For example:
while(text.find(toReplace) != std::string::npos)
counter++;
will be an endless loop because it will keep trying to find the toReplace string in text and it will always find it (that's because find starts from the beginning of the string each time). This is probably not what you intended.
std::string::find returns std::string::npos if the searched substring is not found, not -1. The exact value of npos is implementation-defined, so use npos, as in
while ( text.find(toReplace) != std::string::npos)
Come to think of it, find couldn't return -1 even if it wanted to because the return type of find is specified to be std::size_t which is an unsigned type.
Additionally, find will always search for the first occurrence of the substring, no matter how many times you call it. If you want to iterate through all the occurrences you should use the overload of find which takes a second parameter - the position from which to start searching.
Whoever told you this or wherever you read it, it lied to you.
If std::string::find fails, it returns std::string::npos, which is not -1.
You should check the documentation about such things, when you're not sure.
So, your while will be something like:
while ( std::string::npos != text.find(toReplace) )
Regarding your comment:
UPDATE: I tried to use while ( text.find(toReplace) != string::npos ) but I still get endless loop :( – user2167403 10 secs ago
You should really learn to read the documentation. Use a variable to store the last result of std::string::find (different from std::string::npos) and use std::string::find's second parameter - pos ( by passing value - last_match_position + 1).
Omitting the second parameter, std::string::find always starts from the beginning of the string, which causes the endless loop.
In the code snippet you provided text variable contains substring "ijk" which is stored in the toReplace variable. As long as in while cycle neither text or toReplace variables are changed, find method will always return not a -1 value which is the condition for while cycle to continue.
As already metioned in other comments you should check not for -1 but for std::string::npos.
It does help to read the manual page (string::npos is the answer).
See http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/string/string/find/

Instead of having different size_t variables, can I use just one for searching a std::string multiple times?

I am wondering if it is possible to cut down how many size_t variables I use here. Here is what I have:
std::size_t found, found2, found3, found4 /* etc */;
Each has its own string to find:
found1 = msg.find("string1");
found2 = msg.find("string2");
found3 = msg.find("string3");
found4 = msg.find("string4");
// etc
If the word is found, then it will discard and prevent the message to be shown:
if (found1 != std::string::npos)
{
SendMsg("You cannot say that word!");
}
I have else if statements until found21. I'd like to cut everything down in size, so it would be clean, but I don't have a clue how to do it. I would also like it to lowercase the word. I have never used tolower at all either, so I would appreciated it if someone would help me.
To lowercase a string, you can do
std::transform(msg.begin(), msg.end(), msg.begin(), std::tolower);
Transform takes a begin and end iterator as the first and second arguments, and for each element in that range, applies the fourth argument (a function) and assigns it to what the third iterator is pointing to and increments it. By passing msg.begin() as both the first and third arguments, it will assign the result of the function to what it passed to it. So transform will basically do this:
for (auto src = begin(msg), dst = begin(msg); src != end(msg); ++src, ++dst)
*dst = tolower(*src);
but using transform is so much nicer.
To check whether a string contains any of a list of substrings, you can use a for loop with a vector:
vector<string> bad_strings { "bad word 1", "bad word 2", "etc" };
for (auto i = begin(bad_strings); i != end(bad_strings); ++i)
if (msg.find(*i)) {
SendMsg("You cannot say that word!");
break; // stop when you find it matches even one bad string
}