How to extract phrases that are part of a list in a string using REGEX (Preferably Google Sheets, bu-CodePudding

For example, I have a list of phrases/words ("boy, a guy, tree") and I want them to be the result if written in a string and remove duplicate

Desired Outcome:
Input: boy girl a tree a guy and a boy
Output: boy tree a guy (in any particular order, I don't mind)

Input: boy boy boy boy boy
Output: boy

Input: girl boy girl boy a guy
Output: girl boy a guy (in any particular order, I don't mind)

Input: a guy girl very handsome girl tricky question
Output: a guy girl

CodePudding user response：

You can filter the target words and on the filter callback, you check if the str includes each word of these, and after filteration then join with a white space.

const words = ['boy', 'girl', 'a guy'];

function getWords(str) {
  return words.filter(w => str.includes(w)).join(' ');
}

console.log(getWords("boy boy boy boy boy")) // boy

console.log(getWords("girl boy girl boy a guy Output: girl boy a guy")) // girl boy a guy

console.log(getWords("a guy girl very handsome girl tricky question")) // a guy girl

CodePudding user response：

This work for me:

=TRIM(JOIN(" ",BYROW({"boy","girl","a guy","tree"};LAMBDA(R,IFERROR(REGEXEXTRACT(A1,R))))))

here the test sheet, you can choose words in a first range.

In your examples girl is not declared and not even extracted .