How to check if an ArrayList of Strings contains substrings of another ArrayList of Strings?

Question

List<String> actualList = Arrays.asList ("mother has chocolate", "father has dog");
List<String> expectedList = Arrays.asList ("mother", "father", "son", "daughter");

Is there a way to check if expectedList contains any substrings of the strings in actualList?

I found a nested for-each solution:

public static boolean hasAny(List<String> actualList, List<String> expectedList) {
    for (String expected: expectedList)
        for (String actual: actualList)
            if (actual.contains(expected))
                return true;

    return false;
}

I was trying to a find lambda solution, but I could not. All the methods I found check for String#equals and not for String#contains.

It would be nice to have something like:

CollectionsUtils.containsAny(actualList, exptectedList);

But it compares strings using String#equals not String#contains.

EDIT:

Based on questions: I want to get TRUE if ALL subStrings from actualList are part of expectedList. And solution from Kevin below works for me.

Answer 1

How about something like this:

list1.stream().allMatch(s1 -> list2.stream().anyMatch(s2 -> s1.contains(s2)))

Try it online.

• allMatch will check if everything is true
• anyMatch will check if at least one is true

Here something similar in Java 7 style without lambdas and streams to understand a bit better what is going on:

boolean allMatch = true;       // Start allMatch at true
for(String s1 : list1){
  boolean anyMatch = false;    // Start anyMatch at false inside the loop
  for(String s2 : list2){
    anyMatch = s1.contains(s2);// If any contains is true, anyMatch becomes true as well
    if(anyMatch)               // And stop the inner loop as soon as we've found a match
      break;
  }
  allMatch = anyMatch;         // If any anyMatch is false, allMatch becomes false as well
  if(!allMatch)                // And stop the outer loop as soon as we've found a mismatch
    break;
}
return allMatch;

Try it online.

---

If you prefer to have a CollectionsUtils.containsAny(list1, list2) you can reuse elsewhere in your code, you could always make one yourself:

public final class CollectionsUtil{
  public static boolean containsAny(ArrayList<String> list1, ArrayList<String> list2){
    return list1.stream().allMatch(s1 -> list2.stream().anyMatch(s2 -> s1.contains(s2)));
    // Or the contents of the Java 7 check-method above if you prefer it
  }

  private CollectionsUtil(){
    // Util class, so it's not initializable
  }
}

Which can then be used as you wanted:

boolean result = CollectionsUtils.containsAny(actualList, expectedList);

Try it online.

Answer 2

I am 99% sure you are not looking for hasAny like the most upvoted answer here, but instead you want to see if all from expectedList are contained in any String in actualList. For that it would be beneficial to first create a Set and work of that (since contains is O(1) for HashSet and opposed to O(n) for List).

Think about it now, since all you want is contains, you can split that actualList and create unique words from that:

private static boolean test(List<String> actualList, List<String> expectedList) {

    Pattern p = Pattern.compile("\\s+");

    Set<String> set = actualList.stream()
            .flatMap(p::splitAsStream)
            .collect(Collectors.toSet());

    return expectedList.stream().allMatch(set::contains);

}