Searching word list for key letters

wordList = {'apples'
    'orange'
    'banana'};
ContainList = 'shu';
NotContainList = 'br';

I'd like to be able to find all words that contain the letters S,H or U and do not have the letters B or R. I'm using 'contains' for each letter but is there a way to loop through the ContainList/NotContainList for each word?

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

wordList = {'apples'
    'orange'
    'banana'};
ContainList = 'shu';
NotContainList = 'br';
mask1 = contains(wordList, num2cell(ContainList))

mask1 = 3×1 logical array
   1
   0
   0

mask2 = contains(wordList, num2cell(NotContainList))

mask2 = 3×1 logical array
   0
   1
   1

filtered_words = wordList(mask1 & ~mask2)

filtered_words = 1×1 cell array
    {'apples'}

%another approach
mask3 = ~cellfun(@isempty, regexp(wordList, "[" + ContainList + "]"))

mask3 = 3×1 logical array
   1
   0
   0

mask4 = ~cellfun(@isempty, regexp(wordList, "[" + NotContainList + "]"))

mask4 = 3×1 logical array
   0
   1
   1

filtered_words2  = wordList(mask3 & ~mask4)

filtered_words2 = 1×1 cell array
    {'apples'}

%another approach
pattern = "^[^" + NotContainList + ContainList + "]*[" + ContainList + "][^" + NotContainList + "]*$"

pattern = "^[^brshu]*[shu][^br]*$"

mask5 = ~cellfun(@isempty, regexp(wordList, pattern))

mask5 = 3×1 logical array
   1
   0
   0

filtered_words3 = wordList(mask5)

filtered_words3 = 1×1 cell array
    {'apples'}

[Walter Roberson]

In some cases you might want to work iteratively

wordList = {'apples'
    'orange'
    'banana'};
ContainList = 'shu';
NotContainList = 'br';

words_containing = wordList(contains(wordList, num2cell(ContainList)));
filtered_words = words_containing(~contains(wordList, num2cell(NotContainList)));

In situations where you are doing stepwise refinement, it is most efficient to start from the steps that are expected to make the most difference, each step discarding as much as practical, so that each step is searching less and less information.

Answer 2

[David Hill]

wordList = {'apples','orange','banana','show','unit'};
ContainList = 'shu';
NotContainList = 'br';
r=wordList(contains(wordList,num2cell(ContainList))&~contains(wordList,num2cell(NotContainList)));