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Coding Challenge

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  • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

    I have discovered a truly marvellous solution of this, which the margin of this website is too narrow to contain.

    Ideological Purity is no substitute for being able to stick your thumb down a pipe to stop the water

    L Offline
    L Offline
    Luc Pattyn
    wrote on last edited by
    #114

    You shouldn't be using the fluid layout then. :)

    Luc Pattyn [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum

    1 Reply Last reply
    0
    • L Lost User

      Ah yes. Sorry for not seeing that. Very kewl :) Have a 5!

      Computers have been intelligent for a long time now. It just so happens that the program writers are about as effective as a room full of monkeys trying to crank out a copy of Hamlet.

      K Offline
      K Offline
      Karl Sanford
      wrote on last edited by
      #115

      Not a problem, thanks!

      Be The Noise

      1 Reply Last reply
      0
      • C Chris Maunder

        Back in the Days of Yore we had a couple of small coding challenges such as the Lean and Mean comp. I was thinking that there are a ton of small, well defined problems that can be tackled a zillion ways in a zillion languages and that it would be cool to see what you guys can come up with. I'd like to start the ball rolling with the following simple task: Problem: Given a string of text, trim from each end of the text each all occurrences of a given set of strings Sample input: Input string: "dog cat monkey dog horse dog" Strings that need to be trimmed from each end: { "dog", "cat" } Final output should be: " monkey dog horse" Final output should be " cat monkey dog horse " [Edit: My final sample output was incorrect, so to be fair I'll accept either answer] It's up to you whether you worry about case sensitivity. Let's see who can provide the smallest, neatest most elegant, most unique and/or fastest code. For those who feel like jumping on the "No Programming questions" bandwagon, please re-read the lounge guidelines. The point of this is to have fun, not to solve each other's programming issues.

        cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

        M Offline
        M Offline
        mattiek77
        wrote on last edited by
        #116

        Mix of recursion and regex

        using System;
        using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
        namespace CPTrimmer
        {
        class Program
        {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
        string startVal = "dog cat monkey dog horse dog";
        string[] toTrim = { "dog", "cat" };
        Stripper(ref startVal, toTrim);
        Console.WriteLine(startVal);
        Console.ReadLine();
        }
        static void Stripper(ref string input, string[] toTrim)
        {
        foreach (string trimVal in toTrim)
        {
        Regex start = new Regex(@"\A[ ]{0,}"+trimVal);
        if (start.IsMatch(input))
        {
        input = start.Replace(input, "");
        Stripper(ref input, toTrim);
        }
        Regex end = new Regex(trimVal + @"[ ]{0,}\Z");
        if (end.IsMatch(input))
        {
        input = end.Replace(input, "");
        Stripper(ref input, toTrim);
        }
        }
        }
        }
        }

        1 Reply Last reply
        0
        • M Marc Clifton

          Dang, what are we, a bunch of whiners? It's a PROGRAMMING CHALLENGE! START YOUR CODING ENGINES!!! Do we need detail specs? Hell NO!!! There's probably a regex solution, but that's gross. Here's something I whipped together in about 15 minutes (took a bit of debugging, a few nuances to it) that I hope readable and somewhat reusable:

          using System;
          using System.Collections.Generic;
          using System.Linq;
          using System.Text;
          namespace Stripper
          {
          public enum StringPoint
          {
          None,
          Start,
          End,
          }
          public static class StringHelpersExtensions
          {
          public static string RightOf(this String src, string s)
          {
          string ret = src;
          int idx = src.IndexOf(s);
          if (idx != -1)
          {
          ret = src.Substring(s.Length);
          }
          return ret;
          }
          public static string LeftOfRightmostOf(this String src, string s)
          {
          string ret = src;
          int idx = src.LastIndexOf(s);
          if (idx != -1)
          {
          ret = src.Substring(0, idx);
          }
          return ret;
          }
          public static bool StartsOrEndsWith(this String src, string[] items, out string match, out StringPoint whichEnd)
          {
          bool ret = false;
          whichEnd = StringPoint.None;
          match = String.Empty;
          foreach (string item in items)
          {
          if (src.StartsWith(item))
          {
          match = item;
          whichEnd = StringPoint.Start;
          ret = true;
          break;
          }
          if (src.EndsWith(item))
          {
          match = item;
          whichEnd = StringPoint.End;
          ret = true;
          break;
          }
          }
          return ret;
          }
          }
          class Program
          {
          static void Main(string[] args)
          {
          string input = "dog cat monkey dog horse dog";
          string[] stripOf = { "dog", "cat" };
          string desiredOutput = " monkey dog horse ";
          string result = Stripper(input, stripOf);
          if (result == desiredOutput)
          {
          Console.WriteLine("Success");
          }
          else
          {
          Console.WriteLine("Fail! '" + result + "'");
          }
          }
          static string Stripper(string input, string[] stripOf)
          {
          string ret = input;
          string match;
          StringPoint whichEnd;
          string test = ret.Trim();
          string leftPad = String.Empty;
          string rightPad = String.Empty;
          while (test.StartsOrEndsWith(stripOf, out match, out whichEnd))
          {
          switch (whichEnd)
          {
          case StringPoint.Start:
          // The result always preserves the leading space separating the token, so add it back in.
          leftPad = " ";
          ret = leftPad + test.RightOf(match).Trim() + rightPad;
          break;
          case StringPoint.End:
          // The result always preserves

          C Offline
          C Offline
          Chris Maunder
          wrote on last edited by
          #117

          Quote:

          There's probably a regex solution

          result = Regex.Replace("dog cat monkey dog horse dog", "^(dog|cat)*(.*?)((dog|cat)*)$", "$2",
          RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.SingleLine);

          cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

          M 1 Reply Last reply
          0
          • C Chris Maunder

            Back in the Days of Yore we had a couple of small coding challenges such as the Lean and Mean comp. I was thinking that there are a ton of small, well defined problems that can be tackled a zillion ways in a zillion languages and that it would be cool to see what you guys can come up with. I'd like to start the ball rolling with the following simple task: Problem: Given a string of text, trim from each end of the text each all occurrences of a given set of strings Sample input: Input string: "dog cat monkey dog horse dog" Strings that need to be trimmed from each end: { "dog", "cat" } Final output should be: " monkey dog horse" Final output should be " cat monkey dog horse " [Edit: My final sample output was incorrect, so to be fair I'll accept either answer] It's up to you whether you worry about case sensitivity. Let's see who can provide the smallest, neatest most elegant, most unique and/or fastest code. For those who feel like jumping on the "No Programming questions" bandwagon, please re-read the lounge guidelines. The point of this is to have fun, not to solve each other's programming issues.

            cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

            L Offline
            L Offline
            Luc Pattyn
            wrote on last edited by
            #118

            Assuming strings contain chars below Unicode 32000 only, and ignoring white space details:

            string[] drops=new string[]{"cat","dog"};
            string s="dog cat monkey dog horse dog";
            string rep=" ";
            char c=(char)32000;
            foreach(string drop in drops) {s=s.Replace(drop,c.ToString()); rep+=c; c++;}
            s=s.Trim(rep.ToCharArray());
            c=(char)32000;
            foreach(string drop in drops) {s=s.Replace(c.ToString(),drop); c++;}
            log(s);

            :zzz:

            Luc Pattyn [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum

            C 1 Reply Last reply
            0
            • L Luc Pattyn

              Assuming strings contain chars below Unicode 32000 only, and ignoring white space details:

              string[] drops=new string[]{"cat","dog"};
              string s="dog cat monkey dog horse dog";
              string rep=" ";
              char c=(char)32000;
              foreach(string drop in drops) {s=s.Replace(drop,c.ToString()); rep+=c; c++;}
              s=s.Trim(rep.ToCharArray());
              c=(char)32000;
              foreach(string drop in drops) {s=s.Replace(c.ToString(),drop); c++;}
              log(s);

              :zzz:

              Luc Pattyn [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum

              C Offline
              C Offline
              Chris Maunder
              wrote on last edited by
              #119

              :thumbsup: Neat, but lots and lots of new objects created.

              cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

              1 Reply Last reply
              0
              • M Marc Clifton

                You're algorithm results in: "  monkey dog horse " (two leading spaces) rather than: " monkey dog horse " It's really odd how every solution that I've seen somehow fails to take this into account (as well as the fact that after the first trim, there will be a leading or trailing space in the result.) Are we that bad at reading specs, meeting simple requirements, and testing our code? :sigh: Marc

                My Blog
                An Agile walk on the wild side with Relationship Oriented Programming

                K Offline
                K Offline
                Karl Sanford
                wrote on last edited by
                #120

                Chris updated the guidance, and I have changed my solution accordingly.

                Be The Noise

                1 Reply Last reply
                0
                • C Chris Maunder

                  Back in the Days of Yore we had a couple of small coding challenges such as the Lean and Mean comp. I was thinking that there are a ton of small, well defined problems that can be tackled a zillion ways in a zillion languages and that it would be cool to see what you guys can come up with. I'd like to start the ball rolling with the following simple task: Problem: Given a string of text, trim from each end of the text each all occurrences of a given set of strings Sample input: Input string: "dog cat monkey dog horse dog" Strings that need to be trimmed from each end: { "dog", "cat" } Final output should be: " monkey dog horse" Final output should be " cat monkey dog horse " [Edit: My final sample output was incorrect, so to be fair I'll accept either answer] It's up to you whether you worry about case sensitivity. Let's see who can provide the smallest, neatest most elegant, most unique and/or fastest code. For those who feel like jumping on the "No Programming questions" bandwagon, please re-read the lounge guidelines. The point of this is to have fun, not to solve each other's programming issues.

                  cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

                  B Offline
                  B Offline
                  BillWoodruff
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #121

                  private string inS = "dog cat monkey dog horse dog";

                  private List<string> rmS = new List<string> {"dog", "cat"};

                  private string finalString = "";

                  private string resultString = " ";

                  private string removeVarious(string iStr, List<string> iListStr)
                  {
                  for (int i = 0; i < iListStr.Count; i++)
                  {
                  string str = iListStr[i];

                      if (iStr.StartsWith(str))
                      {
                          iStr = iStr.Remove(0, str.Length + 1);
                          finalString = iStr;
                      }
                  
                      if (iStr.EndsWith(str))
                      {
                          iStr = iStr.Remove(iStr.Length - str.Length - 1, str.Length + 1);
                          finalString = iStr;
                      }
                  
                      if (iListStr.Count > 0)
                      {
                          iListStr.RemoveAt(0);
                          // recursion here
                          removeVarious(iStr, iListStr);
                      }
                      else
                      {
                          break;
                      }
                  }
                  
                  return resultString.Insert(1, finalString);
                  

                  }

                  Note: this was written before Chris changed the accepted output to include the word "cat" at the beginning. Meow. best, Bill

                  "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." Aristotle

                  1 Reply Last reply
                  0
                  • C Chris Maunder

                    Back in the Days of Yore we had a couple of small coding challenges such as the Lean and Mean comp. I was thinking that there are a ton of small, well defined problems that can be tackled a zillion ways in a zillion languages and that it would be cool to see what you guys can come up with. I'd like to start the ball rolling with the following simple task: Problem: Given a string of text, trim from each end of the text each all occurrences of a given set of strings Sample input: Input string: "dog cat monkey dog horse dog" Strings that need to be trimmed from each end: { "dog", "cat" } Final output should be: " monkey dog horse" Final output should be " cat monkey dog horse " [Edit: My final sample output was incorrect, so to be fair I'll accept either answer] It's up to you whether you worry about case sensitivity. Let's see who can provide the smallest, neatest most elegant, most unique and/or fastest code. For those who feel like jumping on the "No Programming questions" bandwagon, please re-read the lounge guidelines. The point of this is to have fun, not to solve each other's programming issues.

                    cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

                    S Offline
                    S Offline
                    Slacker007
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #122

                    my $trimWord = "dog";
                    my $string = "dog cat monkey dog horse dog";

                    $string =~ s/^($trimWord)+|($trimWord)+$//g;

                    print $string;

                    Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
                    "No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "It is the celestial scrotum of good luck!" - Nagy Vilmos (2011)

                    1 Reply Last reply
                    0
                    • N NormDroid

                      Shit my eyes are bleeding :)

                      Software Kinetics Wear a hard hat it's under construction
                      Metro RSS

                      S Offline
                      S Offline
                      Slacker007
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #123

                      You shat your eyes or your eyes are bleeding? :laugh: :-D :thumbsup:

                      Just along for the ride. "the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
                      "No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "It is the celestial scrotum of good luck!" - Nagy Vilmos (2011)

                      1 Reply Last reply
                      0
                      • C Chris Maunder

                        Back in the Days of Yore we had a couple of small coding challenges such as the Lean and Mean comp. I was thinking that there are a ton of small, well defined problems that can be tackled a zillion ways in a zillion languages and that it would be cool to see what you guys can come up with. I'd like to start the ball rolling with the following simple task: Problem: Given a string of text, trim from each end of the text each all occurrences of a given set of strings Sample input: Input string: "dog cat monkey dog horse dog" Strings that need to be trimmed from each end: { "dog", "cat" } Final output should be: " monkey dog horse" Final output should be " cat monkey dog horse " [Edit: My final sample output was incorrect, so to be fair I'll accept either answer] It's up to you whether you worry about case sensitivity. Let's see who can provide the smallest, neatest most elegant, most unique and/or fastest code. For those who feel like jumping on the "No Programming questions" bandwagon, please re-read the lounge guidelines. The point of this is to have fun, not to solve each other's programming issues.

                        cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

                        C Offline
                        C Offline
                        CPallini
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #124

                        The function:

                        -- function
                        require("lpeg")
                        d = lpeg.P"dog" + lpeg.P"cat"
                        g = d^0 * lpeg.C((1-d)^1 * (d^0 * (1-d))^0) * d^0
                        function trm(s) return lpeg.match(g, s) or "" end

                        the test:

                        -- test
                        t = {
                        "dog cat monkey dog horse dog",
                        "dogcatmonkeycatcatcat",
                        "dog",
                        "doghorsedogdog dog",
                        "monkey",
                        "catcatdogcathorse sheep dog cat pig horse sheepcatmonkeydogcat"
                        }

                        for i,v in ipairs(t) do
                        print ("'" .. v .. "'" .. " -> " .. "'" .. trm(v) .. "'")
                        end

                        the output:

                        'dog cat monkey dog horse dog' -> ' cat monkey dog horse '
                        'dogcatmonkeycatcatcat' -> 'monkey'
                        'dog' -> ''
                        'doghorsedogdog dog' -> 'horsedogdog '
                        'monkey' -> 'monkey'
                        'catcatdogcathorse sheep dog cat pig horse sheepcatmonkeydogcat' -> 'horse sheep dog cat pig horse sheepcatmonkey'

                        If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler. -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
                        This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong. -- Iain Clarke
                        [My articles]

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

                          I have discovered a truly marvellous solution of this, which the margin of this website is too narrow to contain.

                          Ideological Purity is no substitute for being able to stick your thumb down a pipe to stop the water

                          L Offline
                          L Offline
                          Lost User
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #125

                          I bet that's the last programming challenge you try!

                          MVVM# - See how I did MVVM my way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')

                          1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • C Chris Maunder

                            Back in the Days of Yore we had a couple of small coding challenges such as the Lean and Mean comp. I was thinking that there are a ton of small, well defined problems that can be tackled a zillion ways in a zillion languages and that it would be cool to see what you guys can come up with. I'd like to start the ball rolling with the following simple task: Problem: Given a string of text, trim from each end of the text each all occurrences of a given set of strings Sample input: Input string: "dog cat monkey dog horse dog" Strings that need to be trimmed from each end: { "dog", "cat" } Final output should be: " monkey dog horse" Final output should be " cat monkey dog horse " [Edit: My final sample output was incorrect, so to be fair I'll accept either answer] It's up to you whether you worry about case sensitivity. Let's see who can provide the smallest, neatest most elegant, most unique and/or fastest code. For those who feel like jumping on the "No Programming questions" bandwagon, please re-read the lounge guidelines. The point of this is to have fun, not to solve each other's programming issues.

                            cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

                            L Offline
                            L Offline
                            Lost User
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #126

                            Chris Maunder wrote:

                            Given a string of text, trim from each end of the text each all occurrences of a given set of strings

                            Assuming (from your sample) you only want to remove a single item from each end (hence the leading 'cat' remains), then the below would seem to provide the requisite output and I feel earn bonus points for its simplicity, elegance and the fact that it's the first opportunity I've had to do c# for nearly a year!

                            private string CodingChallenge(string source, string[] removals)
                            {
                            string delimiter = " ";
                            bool leftDone = false;
                            bool rightDone = false;

                                    foreach (string s in removals)
                                    {
                                        if (!leftDone && source.Substring(0, s.Length) == s && source.Substring(s.Length, 1) == delimiter)
                                        {
                                            source = source.Substring(s.Length);
                                            leftDone = true;
                                        }
                            
                                        if (!rightDone && source.Substring(source.Length - s.Length) == s && source.Substring(source.Length - s.Length - 1, 1) == delimiter)
                                        {
                                            source = source.Substring(0, source.Length - s.Length);
                                            rightDone = true;
                                        }
                                    }
                            
                                    return source;
                                }
                            

                            MVVM# - See how I did MVVM my way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')

                            1 Reply Last reply
                            0
                            • C Chris Maunder

                              Back in the Days of Yore we had a couple of small coding challenges such as the Lean and Mean comp. I was thinking that there are a ton of small, well defined problems that can be tackled a zillion ways in a zillion languages and that it would be cool to see what you guys can come up with. I'd like to start the ball rolling with the following simple task: Problem: Given a string of text, trim from each end of the text each all occurrences of a given set of strings Sample input: Input string: "dog cat monkey dog horse dog" Strings that need to be trimmed from each end: { "dog", "cat" } Final output should be: " monkey dog horse" Final output should be " cat monkey dog horse " [Edit: My final sample output was incorrect, so to be fair I'll accept either answer] It's up to you whether you worry about case sensitivity. Let's see who can provide the smallest, neatest most elegant, most unique and/or fastest code. For those who feel like jumping on the "No Programming questions" bandwagon, please re-read the lounge guidelines. The point of this is to have fun, not to solve each other's programming issues.

                              cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

                              E Offline
                              E Offline
                              ErnestoNet
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #127

                              Need to check this with other strings, debug some more, improve comments and string handling in main(), etc. But still....here it goes:

                              #include "stdafx.h"

                              const wchar_t whitechar = ' ';
                              const bool IncludeWhiteSpace = true;
                              const wchar_t* wordstoremove[] = {L"dog", L"cat"};

                              const wchar_t* strtoparse = L"dog cat monkey dog horse dog"; //Len 28
                              int ltoparse;
                              const int numwords = 2;

                              int wordlen[numwords];

                              //Positions in the original string to rip
                              int pos_orig_from;
                              int pos_orig_to;

                              //Len of left and right copies
                              int left_len;
                              int right_len;

                              //Gets hoy many bytes per char
                              void ProcessLeft(wchar_t* strresult)
                              {
                              bool bContinue = true;

                              pos\_orig\_from = left\_len = 0;
                              
                              while (bContinue)
                              {
                              	//Check for whitespaces. If there are, copy them
                              	if (strtoparse\[pos\_orig\_from\] == whitechar)
                              	{
                              		pos\_orig\_from ++;
                              		if (IncludeWhiteSpace)
                              		{
                              			strresult\[left\_len\] = whitechar;
                              			left\_len ++;
                              		}
                              	}
                              	else
                              	{
                              		bContinue = false;
                              		for (int i = 0; i < numwords; i++)
                              		{
                              			//Compare strings
                              			wchar\_t\* strcompare = (wchar\_t\*)strtoparse + pos\_orig\_from;
                              			if (wcsncmp(strcompare, wordstoremove\[i\], wordlen\[i\]) == 0)
                              			{
                              				pos\_orig\_from += wordlen\[i\];
                              				bContinue = true;
                              				break;
                              			}
                              		}
                              	}
                              }
                              

                              }
                              void ProcessRight(wchar_t* strresult)
                              {
                              bool bContinue = true;

                              pos\_orig\_to = right\_len = ltoparse - 1;
                              
                              while (bContinue)
                              {
                              	//Check for whitespaces. If there are, copy them
                              	if (strtoparse\[pos\_orig\_to\] == whitechar && IncludeWhiteSpace)
                              	{
                              		pos\_orig\_to -= 1;
                              		if (IncludeWhiteSpace)
                              		{
                              			strresult\[right\_len\] = whitechar;
                              			right\_len -= 1;
                              		}
                              	}
                              	else
                              	{
                              		bContinue = false;
                              		for (int i = 0; i < numwords; i++)
                              		{
                              			//Compare strings
                              			//To check right, start from end and substract string to compare len
                              			wchar\_t\* strcompare = (wchar\_t\*)strtoparse + pos\_orig\_to - wordlen\[i\] + 1;
                              			if (wcsncmp(strcompare, wordstoremove\[i\], wordlen\[i\]) == 0)
                              			{
                              				pos\_orig\_to -= wordlen\[i\];
                              				bContinue = true;
                              				break;
                              			}
                              		}
                              	}
                              }
                              

                              }

                              int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
                              {

                              //Load len of words to avoid rechecking
                              for (int i=0; i
                              
                              1 Reply Last reply
                              0
                              • M Marc Clifton

                                Dang, what are we, a bunch of whiners? It's a PROGRAMMING CHALLENGE! START YOUR CODING ENGINES!!! Do we need detail specs? Hell NO!!! There's probably a regex solution, but that's gross. Here's something I whipped together in about 15 minutes (took a bit of debugging, a few nuances to it) that I hope readable and somewhat reusable:

                                using System;
                                using System.Collections.Generic;
                                using System.Linq;
                                using System.Text;
                                namespace Stripper
                                {
                                public enum StringPoint
                                {
                                None,
                                Start,
                                End,
                                }
                                public static class StringHelpersExtensions
                                {
                                public static string RightOf(this String src, string s)
                                {
                                string ret = src;
                                int idx = src.IndexOf(s);
                                if (idx != -1)
                                {
                                ret = src.Substring(s.Length);
                                }
                                return ret;
                                }
                                public static string LeftOfRightmostOf(this String src, string s)
                                {
                                string ret = src;
                                int idx = src.LastIndexOf(s);
                                if (idx != -1)
                                {
                                ret = src.Substring(0, idx);
                                }
                                return ret;
                                }
                                public static bool StartsOrEndsWith(this String src, string[] items, out string match, out StringPoint whichEnd)
                                {
                                bool ret = false;
                                whichEnd = StringPoint.None;
                                match = String.Empty;
                                foreach (string item in items)
                                {
                                if (src.StartsWith(item))
                                {
                                match = item;
                                whichEnd = StringPoint.Start;
                                ret = true;
                                break;
                                }
                                if (src.EndsWith(item))
                                {
                                match = item;
                                whichEnd = StringPoint.End;
                                ret = true;
                                break;
                                }
                                }
                                return ret;
                                }
                                }
                                class Program
                                {
                                static void Main(string[] args)
                                {
                                string input = "dog cat monkey dog horse dog";
                                string[] stripOf = { "dog", "cat" };
                                string desiredOutput = " monkey dog horse ";
                                string result = Stripper(input, stripOf);
                                if (result == desiredOutput)
                                {
                                Console.WriteLine("Success");
                                }
                                else
                                {
                                Console.WriteLine("Fail! '" + result + "'");
                                }
                                }
                                static string Stripper(string input, string[] stripOf)
                                {
                                string ret = input;
                                string match;
                                StringPoint whichEnd;
                                string test = ret.Trim();
                                string leftPad = String.Empty;
                                string rightPad = String.Empty;
                                while (test.StartsOrEndsWith(stripOf, out match, out whichEnd))
                                {
                                switch (whichEnd)
                                {
                                case StringPoint.Start:
                                // The result always preserves the leading space separating the token, so add it back in.
                                leftPad = " ";
                                ret = leftPad + test.RightOf(match).Trim() + rightPad;
                                break;
                                case StringPoint.End:
                                // The result always preserves

                                P Offline
                                P Offline
                                Pete OHanlon
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #128

                                Your former client base is showing mate - calling a method Stripper.

                                Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads

                                "Mind bleach! Send me mind bleach!" - Nagy Vilmos

                                My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility

                                M 1 Reply Last reply
                                0
                                • C Chris Maunder

                                  Back in the Days of Yore we had a couple of small coding challenges such as the Lean and Mean comp. I was thinking that there are a ton of small, well defined problems that can be tackled a zillion ways in a zillion languages and that it would be cool to see what you guys can come up with. I'd like to start the ball rolling with the following simple task: Problem: Given a string of text, trim from each end of the text each all occurrences of a given set of strings Sample input: Input string: "dog cat monkey dog horse dog" Strings that need to be trimmed from each end: { "dog", "cat" } Final output should be: " monkey dog horse" Final output should be " cat monkey dog horse " [Edit: My final sample output was incorrect, so to be fair I'll accept either answer] It's up to you whether you worry about case sensitivity. Let's see who can provide the smallest, neatest most elegant, most unique and/or fastest code. For those who feel like jumping on the "No Programming questions" bandwagon, please re-read the lounge guidelines. The point of this is to have fun, not to solve each other's programming issues.

                                  cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

                                  A Offline
                                  A Offline
                                  AnthonyN1974
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #129

                                  I was fed up, so here it is in c#

                                  using System;
                                  using System.Collections.Generic;
                                  using System.Linq;
                                  using System.Text;

                                  namespace CodeChallenge
                                  {
                                  class Program
                                  {
                                  private static List<string> wordsToRemove = new List<string>() { "dog", "cat" };

                                  static void Main(string\[\] args)
                                  {
                                    string text = "dog cat monkey dog horse dog";
                                  
                                    string\[\] words = text.Split(' ');
                                    string\[\] output;
                                    int start = 0;
                                    int end = 0;
                                  
                                    // test the start
                                    if (wordsToRemove.Contains(words\[0\]) && words.Length > 0)
                                      start = 1;
                                  
                                    // test the end
                                    if (wordsToRemove.Contains(words\[words.Length - 1\]) && words.Length != start)
                                      end = (words.Length - 1) - start;
                                    else
                                      end = words.Length - start;
                                  
                                    //build
                                    output = new string\[end\];
                                    Array.Copy(words, start, output, 0, end);
                                  
                                    //output
                                    Console.WriteLine(string.Join(" ",output));
                                  }
                                  

                                  }
                                  }

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • C Chris Maunder

                                    Back in the Days of Yore we had a couple of small coding challenges such as the Lean and Mean comp. I was thinking that there are a ton of small, well defined problems that can be tackled a zillion ways in a zillion languages and that it would be cool to see what you guys can come up with. I'd like to start the ball rolling with the following simple task: Problem: Given a string of text, trim from each end of the text each all occurrences of a given set of strings Sample input: Input string: "dog cat monkey dog horse dog" Strings that need to be trimmed from each end: { "dog", "cat" } Final output should be: " monkey dog horse" Final output should be " cat monkey dog horse " [Edit: My final sample output was incorrect, so to be fair I'll accept either answer] It's up to you whether you worry about case sensitivity. Let's see who can provide the smallest, neatest most elegant, most unique and/or fastest code. For those who feel like jumping on the "No Programming questions" bandwagon, please re-read the lounge guidelines. The point of this is to have fun, not to solve each other's programming issues.

                                    cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

                                    M Offline
                                    M Offline
                                    mrchief_2000
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #130

                                    Probably not the most efficient, but in C#, this works:

                                    using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

                                    var source = "dog cat dog horses monkeys dog";
                                    var stringsToTrim = new[] { "dog", "cat" };
                                    var trimmedString = Regex.Replace(source, string.Format("^({0})|({0})$", string.Join("|", stringsToTrim )), "");
                                    Console.WriteLine(trimmedString);

                                    Live demo: http://rextester.com/GTLWO64640[^] Making above shorter:

                                    using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

                                    Console.WriteLine(Regex.Replace("dog cat dog horses monkeys dog", string.Format("^({0})|({0})$", string.Join("|", "dog", "cat")), ""));

                                    1 Reply Last reply
                                    0
                                    • C Chris Maunder

                                      Back in the Days of Yore we had a couple of small coding challenges such as the Lean and Mean comp. I was thinking that there are a ton of small, well defined problems that can be tackled a zillion ways in a zillion languages and that it would be cool to see what you guys can come up with. I'd like to start the ball rolling with the following simple task: Problem: Given a string of text, trim from each end of the text each all occurrences of a given set of strings Sample input: Input string: "dog cat monkey dog horse dog" Strings that need to be trimmed from each end: { "dog", "cat" } Final output should be: " monkey dog horse" Final output should be " cat monkey dog horse " [Edit: My final sample output was incorrect, so to be fair I'll accept either answer] It's up to you whether you worry about case sensitivity. Let's see who can provide the smallest, neatest most elegant, most unique and/or fastest code. For those who feel like jumping on the "No Programming questions" bandwagon, please re-read the lounge guidelines. The point of this is to have fun, not to solve each other's programming issues.

                                      cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

                                      C Offline
                                      C Offline
                                      Clumpco
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #131

                                      Here's a solution in APL V←'dog cat monkey dog horse dog' Q←'dog' V←(((V≠Q)⍳1)-⎕IO)↓V V←(⎕IO-(Q≠⌽V)⍳1)↓V Q←'cat' V←(((V≠Q)⍳1)-⎕IO)↓V V←(⎕IO-(Q≠⌽V)⍳1)↓V No doubt a true APL programmer could do it in one line.

                                      1 Reply Last reply
                                      0
                                      • C Chris Maunder

                                        Quote:

                                        There's probably a regex solution

                                        result = Regex.Replace("dog cat monkey dog horse dog", "^(dog|cat)*(.*?)((dog|cat)*)$", "$2",
                                        RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.SingleLine);

                                        cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP

                                        M Offline
                                        M Offline
                                        Marc Clifton
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #132

                                        Chris Maunder wrote:

                                        result = Regex.Replace

                                        That's sweet. And amazingly simple. Marc

                                        My Blog
                                        An Agile walk on the wild side with Relationship Oriented Programming

                                        1 Reply Last reply
                                        0
                                        • P Pete OHanlon

                                          Your former client base is showing mate - calling a method Stripper.

                                          Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads

                                          "Mind bleach! Send me mind bleach!" - Nagy Vilmos

                                          My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility

                                          M Offline
                                          M Offline
                                          Marc Clifton
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #133

                                          Pete O'Hanlon wrote:

                                          Your former client base is showing mate - calling a method Stripper.

                                          I am scarred for life! ;P Marc

                                          My Blog
                                          An Agile walk on the wild side with Relationship Oriented Programming

                                          1 Reply Last reply
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