How to do string array searches w/ multiple returns.

[Fritz Largosa]

Is there a way to search an array for multiple matches? For example My array will have
"A","AB","AAB","AA123","BC","BA","BA","BAC","C"..."Z". I want a function to be able to return, A, AB,AAB,AA123 if it receives "A", if the function receives AA it returns AAB,AA123. Anyone have any, ideas, links, documentation, which my be helpful? I'm stuck can't seem to find any helpful info for this one.

Thanks.

[Adam Nace]

Basically, you want to return a list. You want something like this:

public String[] getMatches(String [] sample, String pattern) {
    ArrayList<String> patternMatches = new ArrayList<String>();
    for (String s : sample) {
        if (matches(s, pattern)) {
            patternMatches.add(s);
        }
    }
 
    return patternMatches.asArray();
}

I leave it to you to define the matches() method.

- Adam

[Fritz Largosa]

Thanks, I'll give this one a try.