Check whether a string contains one of multiple su

Question

I've got a long string-variable and want to find out whether it contains one of two substrings.

e.g.

haystack = 'this one is pretty long'
needle1 = 'whatever'
needle2 = 'pretty'

Now I'd need a disjunction like this which doesn't work in Ruby though:

if haystack.include? needle1 || haystack.include? needle2
    puts "needle found within haystack"
end

Answer 1

I was trying to find simple way to search multiple substrings in an array and end up with below which answers the question as well. I've added the answer as I know many geeks consider other answers and not the accepted one only.

haystack.select { |str| str.include?(needle1) || str.include?(needle2) }

and if searching partially:

haystack.select { |str| str.include?('wat') || str.include?('pre') }

Answer 2

Try parens in the expression:

 haystack.include?(needle1) || haystack.include?(needle2)

Answer 3

For an array of substrings to search for I'd recommend

needles = ["whatever", "pretty"]

if haystack.match(Regexp.union(needles))
  ...
end

Answer 4

To check if contains at least one of two substrings:

haystack[/whatever|pretty/]

Returns first result found

Answer 5

(haystack.split & [needle1, needle2]).any?

To use comma as separator: split(',')

Answer 6

If Ruby 2.4, you can do a regex match using | (or):

if haystack.match? /whatever|pretty|something/
  …
end

Or if your strings are in an array:

if haystack.match? Regex.union(strings)
  …
end

(For Ruby < 2.4, use .match without question mark.)