How to do a search from a list with non-prefix keywords
- by aNui
First of all, sorry if my english or my post got any mistakes.
I am programming a program to search the name from the list and I need to find them if the keyword is not in front of the names (that's what I mean non-prefix)
e.g. if I my list is the music instruments and I type "guit" to the search textbox.
It should find the names "Guitar, Guitarrón, Acoustic Guitar, Bass Guitar, ..."
or something like this Longdo Dictionary's search suggestion.
here is my simple and stupid algorithm (that's all I can do)
const int SEARCHROWLIMIT = 30;
private string[] DoSearch(string Input, string[] ListToSearch)
{
List<string> FoundNames = new List<string>();
int max = 0;
bool over = false;
for (int k = 0; !over; k++)
{
foreach (string item in ListToSearch)
{
max = (max > item.Length) ? max : item.Length;
if (k > item.Length) continue;
if (k >= max) { over = true; break; }
if (!Input.Equals("Search")
&& item.Substring(k, item.Length - k).StartsWith(Input, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
{
bool exist = false;
int i = 0;
while (!exist && i < FoundNames.Count)
{
if (item.Equals(FoundNames[i]))
{
exist = true;
break;
}
i++;
}
if (!exist && FoundNames.Count < SEARCHROWLIMIT)
FoundNames.Add(item);
else if (FoundNames.Count >= SEARCHROWLIMIT) over = true;
}
}
}
return FoundNames.ToArray();
}
I think this algorithm is too slow for a large number of names and after several trial-and-error, I decided to add SEARCHROWLIMIT to breaks the operation
And I also think there're some readymade methods that can do that.
And another problem is I need to search music instruments by a category like strings, percussions, ... and by the country of origins. So I need to search them with filter by type and country.
please help me.
P.S. Me and my friends are just student from Thailand and developing the project to compete in Microsoft Imagine Cup 2010 and please become fan on our facebook page [KRATIB][3]. And we're so sorry we don't have much information in English but you can talk to us in English.
