Swift 3 String Contains Exact Sentence / Word

A solution is Regular Expression which is able to check for word boundaries.

This is a simple String extension, the pattern searches for the query string wrapped in word boundaries (\b)

extension String {
    func contains(word : String) -> Bool
    {
        do {
            let regex = try NSRegularExpression(pattern: "\\b\(word)\\b")
            return regex.numberOfMatches(in: self, range: NSRange(word.startIndex..., in: word)) > 0
        } catch {
            return false
        }
    }
}

Or – thanks to Sulthan – still simpler

extension String {
    func contains(word : String) -> Bool
    {
        return self.range(of: "\\b\(word)\\b", options: .regularExpression) != nil
    }
}

Usage:

let string = "I know your name"
string.contains(word:"your") // true
string.contains(word:"you") // false

A regexless solution would be something like:

yourString.components(separatedBy: CharacterSet.alphanumerics.inverted)
    .filter { $0 != "" } // this is here os that it always evaluates to false if wordToFind is "". Feel free to remove this line if you don't need it.
    .contains(wordToFind)

This will treat every non-alphanumeric character as a word boundary.

Tags:

Swift