Search Google Sheet column for matching text and print matches - google-sheets

Question

I have a table with Long Words like 'Condemnation' and 'Income' in column A, and Shorter Words such as 'Con' and 'Come' in column B.
I'd like to create a cell to the right which will search through the 'LONG WORD' column if it contains the text of the 'SHORTER WORD' column and print them as a pair.
I only need it to return the first instance it comes across as it goes down.
I have looked at various MATCH and LOOKUP commands, but none seem quite to be able to do the 'return one matching word from a whole column' bit.
Thanks
Tardy

Answer 1

I've thrown together a script based solution for you. Other solutions that require a formula on every line where you might have partials will end up bogging down the sheet by quite a bit for large data sets. This should generate a range of matches after a couple seconds for data several tens of thousands of rows long.
Note: Since you opted to not provide a sample dataset, I had to assume how it's laid out. However, this will work regardless of where your columns are, as long as they are titled as Full Words, Partials, and Matches.
Link to spreadsheet (Must be signed into a google account to use the button): Google Sheet
Just click the Get Matches button to have it generate the matches.
The source is a bit more complex/dynamic than it needs to be, but I had a bunch of functions already laying around that I just reused.
Source:
//Retrieves all the necessary word matches
function GetWordMatches() {
var spreadsheet = SpreadsheetApp.openById('1s0S2iJ7L0wEXgVsKrpuK-aLysaxfHYRDQgp3ShPR8Ns').getSheetByName('Matches');
var dataRange = spreadsheet.getDataRange();
var valuesRange = dataRange.getValues();
var columns = GetColumns(valuesRange, dataRange.getNumColumns(), 0);
var fullWordsData = GetColumnAsArray(valuesRange, columns.columns['Full Words'].index, true, 1);
var partialsArray = GetColumnAsArray(valuesRange, columns.columns['Partials'].index, true, 1);
var partialsData = GeneratePartialsRegexArray(partialsArray);
var matches = GenerateMatches(fullWordsData, partialsData);
WriteMatchesToSheet(spreadsheet, columns.columns['Matches'].index, matches, partialsArray);
}
//Writes the matches to the sheet
function WriteMatchesToSheet(spreadsheet, matchesColumnIndex, matches, partialsArray){
var sortedMatches = SortByKeys(matches, partialsArray);
var dataRange = spreadsheet.getRange(2, matchesColumnIndex+1, sortedMatches.length);
dataRange.setValues(sortedMatches);
}
//Generates an array of matches for the full words and partials
function GenerateMatches(fullwordsData, partialsData){
var output = [];
var totalLoops = 0;
for(var i = 0; i < fullwordsData.length; i++){
totalLoops++;
for(var ii = 0; ii < partialsData.length; ii++){
totalLoops++;
var result = fullwordsData[i].match(partialsData[ii].regex)
if(result){
output.push([fullwordsData[i], partialsData[ii].value]);
partialsData.splice(ii, 1);
break;
}
}
}
if(partialsData.length > 0){
var missedData = GenerateMissedPartialsArray(partialsData);
output = output.concat(missedData);
}
return output;
}
//Generates a missed partials array based on the partials that found no match.
function GenerateMissedPartialsArray(partialsData){
var output = [];
for(var i = 0; i < partialsData.length; i++){
output.push(['No Match', partialsData[i].value])
}
return output;
}
//Generates the regex array for the partials
function GeneratePartialsRegexArray(partialsArray){
var output = [];
for(var i = 0; i < partialsArray.length; i++){
output.push({regex: new RegExp(partialsArray[i], 'i'), value: partialsArray[i]});
}
return output;
}
//http://stackoverflow.com/a/13305008/3547347
function SortByKeys(itemsArray, sortingArray){
var itemsMap = CreateItemsMap(itemsArray), result = [];
for (var i = 0; i < sortingArray.length; ++i) {
var key = sortingArray[i];
result.push([itemsMap[key].shift()]);
}
return result;
}
//http://stackoverflow.com/a/13305008/3547347
function CreateItemsMap(itemsArray) {
var itemsMap = {};
for (var i = 0, item; (item = itemsArray[i]); ++i) {
(itemsMap[item[1]] || (itemsMap[item[1]] = [])).push(item[0]);
}
return itemsMap;
}
//Gets a column of data as an array
function GetColumnAsArray(valuesRange, columnIndex, ignoreBlank, startRowIndex){
var output = [];
for(var i = startRowIndex; i < valuesRange.length; i++){
if(ignoreBlank){
if(valuesRange[i][columnIndex] !== ''){
output.push(valuesRange[i][columnIndex]);
}
continue;
}
output.push(valuesRange[i][columnIndex]);
}
return output;
}
//Gets a columns object for the sheet for easy indexing
function GetColumns(valuesRange, columnCount, rowIndex)
{
var columns = {
columns: {},
length: 0
}
Logger.log("Populating columns...");
for(var i = 0; i < columnCount; i++)
{
if(valuesRange[0][i] !== ''){
columns.columns[valuesRange[0][i]] = {index: i ,value: valuesRange[0][i]};
columns.length++;
}
}
return columns;
}
A note on some decisions: I opted to not use map, or other more concise array functions for the sake of performance.

Answer 2

This works too:
=QUERY(FILTER($D$1:$D$3,REGEXMATCH(A1,"(?i)"&$D$1:$D$3)),"limit 1")
we use REGEXMATCH and (?i) makes the search case-insensitive. limit 1 in query gives only first occurrence.

Answer 3

OK, I think I've found an answer. I'll post it here in case it's of use to anyone else.
To give credit where's credit's due, I found it here
This does what I was looking for:
=INDEX($D$1:$D$3,MATCH(1,COUNTIF(A1,"*"&$D$1:$D$3&"*"),0))
It does slow EVERYTHING down a lot because everything is cross-referencing like mad (I had 3000 lines on my spreadsheet), but if there's a list of words in D1-3 it will see if cell A1 contains one of those words and print the word it matches with.
Thanks to everyone who offered solutions, particularly #douglasg14b - if there is one that is less taxing in terms of memory, that would be great, but this does the trick in a slow kind of way!
Thanks
Tardy

Answer 4

MATCH and LOOKUP doesn't work for partial matches.
One alternative is to use SEARCH or FIND together with other functions in an array formula.
Example:
Column A contains a list of long strings
Cell B1 contain a short string
Cell C1 contain a formula that returns the first long string in column a that contains the short string in B1
=ArrayFormula(INDEX(A1:A,SORT(IF(search(B1,A1:A),ROW(A1:A),),1,TRUE)))
Data
+---+--------------+-------+-------------+
| | A | B | C |
+---+--------------+-------+-------------+
| 1 | Orange juice | apple | Apple cider |
| 2 | Apple cider | | |
| 3 | Apple pay | | |
+---+--------------+-------+-------------+