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Using List<string>.Any() to find if a string contains an item as well as find the matching item?

I have a list of strings, which can be considered 'filters'.
For example:
List<string> filters = new List<string>();
filters.Add("Apple");
filters.Add("Orange");
filters.Add("Banana");
I have another list of strings, which contains sentences.
Example:
List<string> msgList = new List<string>();
msgList.Add("This sentence contains the word Apple.");
msgList.Add("This doesn't contain any fruits.");
msgList.Add("This does. It's a banana.");
Now I want to find out which items in msgList contains a fruit. For which, I use the following code:
foreach(string msg in msgList)
{
if(filters.Any(msg.Contains))
{
// Do something.
}
}
I'm wondering, is there a way in Linq where I can use something similar to List.Any() where I can check if msgList contains a fruit, and if it does, also get the fruit which matched the inquiry. If I can get the matching index in 'filters' that should be fine. That is, for the first iteration of the loop it should return 0 (index of 'Apple'), for the second iteration return null or something like a negative value, for the third iteration it should return 2 (index of 'Banana').
I checked around in SO as well as Google but couldn't find exactly what I'm looking for.

You want FirstOrDefault instead of Any.
FirstOrDefault will return the first object that matches, if found, or the default value (usually null) if not found.

You could use the List<T>.Find method:
foreach (string msg in msgList)
{
var fruit = filters.Find(msg.Contains);
if (fruit != null)
{
// Do something.
}
}

List<string> filters = new List<string>() { "Apple", "Orange", "Banana" };
string msg = "This sentence contains the word Apple.";
var fruit = Regex.Matches(msg, #"\w+", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase)
.Cast<Match>()
.Select(x=>x.Value)
.FirstOrDefault(s => filters.Contains(s));

A possible approach to return the indexes of the elements
foreach (string msg in msgList)
{
var found = filters.Select((x, i) => new {Key = x, Idx = i})
.FirstOrDefault(x => msg.Contains(x.Key));
Console.WriteLine(found?.Idx);
}
Note also that Contains is case sensitive, so the banana string is not matched against the Banana one. If you want a case insensitive you could use IndexOf with the StringComparison operator

Check whether a string is in a list at any order in C#

If We have a list of strings like the following code:
List<string> XAll = new List<string>();
XAll.Add("#10#20");
XAll.Add("#20#30#40");
string S = "#30#20";//<- this is same as #20#30 also same as "#20#30#40" means S is exist in that list
//check un-ordered string S= #30#20
// if it is contained at any order like #30#20 or even #20#30 ..... then return true :it is exist
if (XAll.Contains(S))
{
Console.WriteLine("Your String is exist");
}
I would prefer to use Linq to check that S in this regard is exist, no matter how the order is in the list, but it contains both (#30) and (#20) [at least] together in that list XAll.
I am using
var c = item2.Intersect(item1);
if (c.Count() == item1.Length)
{
return true;
}

You should represent your data in a more meaningful way. Don't rely on strings.
For example I would suggest creating a type to represent a set of these numbers and write some code to populate it.
But there are already set types such as HashSet which is possibly a good match with built in functions for testing for sub sets.
This should get you started:
var input = "#20#30#40";
var hashSetOfNumbers = new HashSet<int>(input
.Split(new []{'#'}, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries)
.Select(s=>int.Parse(s)));

This works for me:
Func<string, string[]> split =
x => x.Split(new [] { '#' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
if (XAll.Any(x => split(x).Intersect(split(S)).Count() == split(S).Count()))
{
Console.WriteLine("Your String is exist");
}
Now, depending on you you want to handle duplicates, this might even be a better solution:
Func<string, HashSet<string>> split =
x => new HashSet<string>(x.Split(
new [] { '#' },
StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries));
if (XAll.Any(x => split(S).IsSubsetOf(split(x))))
{
Console.WriteLine("Your String is exist");
}
This second approach uses pure set theory so it strips duplicates.

Alternative to if, else if

I have a lot of if, else if statements and I know there has to be a better way to do this but even after searching stackoverflow I'm unsure of how to do so in my particular case.
I am parsing text files (bills) and assigning the name of the service provider to a variable (txtvar.Provider) based on if certain strings appear on the bill.
This is a small sample of what I'm doing (don't laugh, I know it's messy). All in all, There are approximately 300 if, else if's.
if (txtvar.BillText.IndexOf("SWGAS.COM") > -1)
{
txtvar.Provider = "Southwest Gas";
}
else if (txtvar.BillText.IndexOf("georgiapower.com") > -1)
{
txtvar.Provider = "Georgia Power";
}
else if (txtvar.BillText.IndexOf("City of Austin") > -1)
{
txtvar.Provider = "City of Austin";
}
// And so forth for many different strings
I would like to use something like a switch statement to be more efficient and readable but I'm unsure of how I would compare the BillText. I'm looking for something like this but can't figure out how to make it work.
switch (txtvar.BillText)
{
case txtvar.BillText.IndexOf("Southwest Gas") > -1:
txtvar.Provider = "Southwest Gas";
break;
case txtvar.BillText.IndexOf("TexasGas.com") > -1:
txtvar.Provider = "Texas Gas";
break;
case txtvar.BillText.IndexOf("Southern") > -1:
txtvar.Provider = "Southern Power & Gas";
break;
}
I'm definitely open to ideas.
I would need the ability to determine the order in which the values were evaluated.
As you can imagine, when parsing for hundreds of slightly different layouts I occasionally run into the issue of not having a distinctly unique indicator as to what service provider the bill belongs to.

Why not use everything C# has to offer? The following use of anonymous types, collection initializers, implicitly typed variables, and lambda-syntax LINQ is compact, intuitive, and maintains your modified requirement that patterns be evaluated in order:
var providerMap = new[] {
new { Pattern = "SWGAS.COM" , Name = "Southwest Gas" },
new { Pattern = "georgiapower.com", Name = "Georgia Power" },
// More specific first
new { Pattern = "City of Austin" , Name = "City of Austin" },
// Then more general
new { Pattern = "Austin" , Name = "Austin Electric Company" }
// And for everything else:
new { Pattern = String.Empty , Name = "Unknown" }
};
txtVar.Provider = providerMap.First(p => txtVar.BillText.IndexOf(p.Pattern) > -1).Name;
More likely, the pairs of patterns would come from a configurable source, such as:
var providerMap =
System.IO.File.ReadLines(#"C:\some\folder\providers.psv")
.Select(line => line.Split('|'))
.Select(parts => new { Pattern = parts[0], Name = parts[1] }).ToList();
Finally, as #millimoose points out, anonymous types are less useful when passed between methods. In that case we can define a trival Provider class and use object initializers for nearly identical syntax:
class Provider {
public string Pattern { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
}
var providerMap =
System.IO.File.ReadLines(#"C:\some\folder\providers.psv")
.Select(line => line.Split('|'))
.Select(parts => new Provider() { Pattern = parts[0], Name = parts[1] }).ToList();

Since you seem to need to search for the key before returning the value a Dictionary is the right way to go, but you will need to loop over it.
// dictionary to hold mappings
Dictionary<string, string> mapping = new Dictionary<string, string>();
// add your mappings here
// loop over the keys
foreach (KeyValuePair<string, string> item in mapping)
{
// return value if key found
if(txtvar.BillText.IndexOf(item.Key) > -1) {
return item.Value;
}
}
EDIT: If you wish to have control over the order in which elemnts are evaluated, use an OrderedDictionary and add the elements in the order in which you want them evaluated.

One more using LINQ and Dictionary
var mapping = new Dictionary<string, string>()
{
{ "SWGAS.COM", "Southwest Gas" },
{ "georgiapower.com", "Georgia Power" }
.
.
};
return mapping.Where(pair => txtvar.BillText.IndexOf(pair.Key) > -1)
.Select(pair => pair.Value)
.FirstOrDefault();
If we prefer empty string instead of null when no key matches we can use the ?? operator:
return mapping.Where(pair => txtvar.BillText.IndexOf(pair.Key) > -1)
.Select(pair => pair.Value)
.FirstOrDefault() ?? "";
If we should consider the dictionary contains similar strings we add an order by, alphabetically, shortest key will be first, this will pick 'SCE' before 'SCEC'
return mapping.Where(pair => txtvar.BillText.IndexOf(pair.Key) > -1)
.OrderBy(pair => pair.Key)
.Select(pair => pair.Value)
.FirstOrDefault() ?? "";

To avoid the blatant Schlemiel the Painter's approach that looping over all the keys would involve: let's use regular expressions!
// a dictionary that holds which bill text keyword maps to which provider
static Dictionary<string, string> BillTextToProvider = new Dictionary<string, string> {
{"SWGAS.COM", "Southwest Gas"},
{"georgiapower.com", "Georgia Power"}
// ...
};
// a regex that will match any of the keys of this dictionary
// i.e. any of the bill text keywords
static Regex BillTextRegex = new Regex(
string.Join("|", // to alternate between the keywords
from key in BillTextToProvider.Keys // grab the keywords
select Regex.Escape(key))); // escape any special characters in them
/// If any of the bill text keywords is found, return the corresponding provider.
/// Otherwise, return null.
string GetProvider(string billText)
{
var match = BillTextRegex.Match(billText);
if (match.Success)
// the Value of the match will be the found substring
return BillTextToProvider[match.Value];
else return null;
}
// Your original code now reduces to:
var provider = GetProvider(txtvar.BillText);
// the if is be unnecessary if txtvar.Provider should be null in case it can't be
// determined
if (provider != null)
txtvar.Provider = provider;
Making this case-insensitive is a trivial exercise for the reader.
All that said, this does not even pretend to impose an order on which keywords to look for first - it will find the match that's located earliest in the string. (And then the one that occurs first in the RE.) You do however mention that you're searching through largeish texts; if .NET's RE implementation is at all good this should perform considerably better than 200 naive string searches. (By only making one pass through the string, and maybe a little by merging common prefixes in the compiled RE.)
If ordering is important to you, you might want to consider looking for an implementation of a better string search algorithm than .NET uses. (Like a variant of Boyer-Moore.)

What you want is a Dictionary:
Dictionary<string, string> mapping = new Dictionary<string, string>();
mapping["SWGAS.COM"] = "Southwest Gas";
mapping["foo"] = "bar";
... as many as you need, maybe read from a file ...
Then just:
return mapping[inputString];
Done.

One way of doing it (other answers show very valid options):
void Main()
{
string input = "georgiapower.com";
string output = null;
// an array of string arrays...an array of Tuples would also work,
// or a List<T> with any two-member type, etc.
var search = new []{
new []{ "SWGAS.COM", "Southwest Gas"},
new []{ "georgiapower.com", "Georgia Power"},
new []{ "City of Austin", "City of Austin"}
};
for( int i = 0; i < search.Length; i++ ){
// more complex search logic could go here (e.g. a regex)
if( input.IndexOf( search[i][0] ) > -1 ){
output = search[i][1];
break;
}
}
// (optional) check that a valid result was found.
if( output == null ){
throw new InvalidOperationException( "A match was not found." );
}
// Assign the result, output it, etc.
Console.WriteLine( output );
}
The main thing to take out of this exercise is that creating a giant switch or if/else structure is not the best way to do it.

There are several approaches to do this, but for the reason of simplicity, conditional operator may be a choice:
Func<String, bool> contains=x => {
return txtvar.BillText.IndexOf(x)>-1;
};
txtvar.Provider=
contains("SWGAS.COM")?"Southwest Gas":
contains("georgiapower.com")?"Georgia Power":
contains("City of Austin")?"City of Austin":
// more statements go here
// if none of these matched, txtvar.Provider is assigned to itself
txtvar.Provider;
Note the result is according to the more preceded condition which is met, so if txtvar.BillText="City of Austin georgiapower.com"; then the result would be "Georgia Power".

you can use dictionary.
Dictionary<string, string> textValue = new Dictionary<string, string>();
foreach (KeyValuePair<string, string> textKey in textValue)
{
if(txtvar.BillText.IndexOf(textKey.Key) > -1)
return textKey.Value;
}

Using Contains() list method to evaluate list contents

I have a list that contains 3 items, two of type_1, and one of type_2. I want to return a second list that contains the type and number of that type that exists. When stepping through the breakpoints set at the foreach loop, the IF statement is never true. I assume there is something wrong with my attempt to use Contains() method.
The output should be something like:
type_1 2
type_2 1
Instead, it evaluates as:
type_1 1
type_1 1
type_2 1
Is my use of Contains() not correct?
public List<item_count> QueryGraphListingsNewAccountReport()
List<item> result = new List<items>();
var type_item1 = new item { account_type = "Type_1" };
var type_item2 = new item { account_type = "Type_1" };
var type_item3 = new item { account_type = "Type_2" };
result.Add(type_item1);
result.Add(type_item2);
result.Add(type_item3);
//Create a empty list that will hold the account_type AND a count of how many of that type exists:
List<item_count> result_count = new List<item_count>();
foreach (var item in result)
{
if (result_count.Contains(new item_count { account_type = item.account_type, count = 1 } ) == true)
{
var result_item = result_count.Find(x => x.account_type == item.account_type);
result_item.count += 1;
result_count.Add(result_item);
}
else
{
var result_item = new item_count { account_type = item.account_type, count = 1 };
result_count.Add(result_item);
}
}
return result_count;
}
public class item
{
public string account_type { get; set; }
}
public class item_count
{
public int count {get; set;}
public string account_type { get; set; }
}

I think your problem is that you don't want to use contains at all. You are creating a new object in your contains statement and, obviously, it isn't contained in your list already because you only just created it. The comparison is comparing references, not values.
Why not just use the find statement that you do in the next line instead? If it returns null, then you know there isn't an item already with that type.
So you could do something like this:
var result_item = result_count.Find(x => x.account_type == item.account_type);
if (result_item != null)
{
result_item.count++;
// note here you don't need to add it back to the list!
}
else
{
// create your new result_item here and add it to your list.
}
Note: Find is o(n), so this might not scale well if you have a really large set of types. In that case, you might be better off with Saeed's suggestion of grouping.

You can do:
myList.GroupBy(x=>x.type).Select(x=>new {x.Key, x.Count()});
If you want use for loop, it's better to use linq Count function to achieve this, If you want use Contains you should implement equal operator as the way you used.

Validation - looking for certain combinations of values

I'm doing some validation where I need to check for certain combinations between two values. For example, if string1 is "fruit", valid values for string2 are "apple", "banana" and "pear". Currently, I'm doing this:
switch(string1)
{
case "fruit":
if(string2 != "apple" && string2 != "banana")
{
return false;
}
break;
case "meat":
if(string2 != "beef" && string2 != "pork")
{
return false;
}
default:
return true;
break;
}
This is really two questions. The first is, is there any good way to do something more like this:
switch(string1)
{
case "fruit":
if(string2 NOT IN ("apple", "banana"))
{
return true;
}
break;
case "meat":
if(string2 NOT IN ("beef", "pork"))
{
return false;
}
default:
return true;
break;
}
The second part of this question is likely what will get answered first: is there a better/best way to do this? I'm not the most amazing coder in the world and this is the first "off the top of my head" solution, so I'm certainly open to better ones. Thanks!

A variation on Nick's answer. Create two lists and use the contains method against them.
public List<string> Fruit = new List<string>{"apple", "banana"};
public List<string> Meat = new List<string>{"beef", "pork"};
switch (string1)
{
case "fruit":
return Fruit.Contains(string2);
case "meat":
return Meat.Contains(string2);
}

Yeah, there's a better way. You want to create a map, which associates your "category" ("fruit") with a string List of your elements ("apple", "banana", etc.). Then you want to look up your "string1" in your example above from the map and see if your associated string List Contains() your "string2".
This makes it entirely data-driven, and leverages the built-in abilities of the Collections more successfully.

Here is a way using Linq:
Dictionary<string, IList<string>> validValues = new Dictionary<string, IList<string>>()
{
{ "fruit", new List<string>() { "apple", "banana" } },
{ "meat", new List<string>() { "pork", "beef" } }
};
if (validValues.FirstOrDefault(x => x.Key == string1 && x.Value.Contains(string2)).Value != null)
{
return true;
}
return false;

You can shorten your cases down to:
switch(string1)
{
case "fruit":
return new[] { "apple", "banana" }.Contains(string2);
case "meat":
return new[] { "beef", "pork" }.Contains(string2);
default:
return true;
break;
}
I think style is, to a large degree, dependent upon personal taste. This is my taste...I think it's easy to add a new value in there with the array style, with as little overhead (I believe, someone feel free to correct me) that you can get with an array/collection style of "if-in" type check.

You could do something like this:
Dictionary<string, string> map = new Dictionary<string, string>();
map.add("banana", "fruit");
map.add("apple", "fruit");
map.add("pear", "fruit");
map.add("beef", "meat");
map.add("pork", "meat");
if(map[string2] == string1)
return true;