Matching based on the first word

Hi,

I have two cell arrays A and B where each contains companies names: for example A contains "Biotech Capital Corp" while B contains the same company but listed differently "BIOTECH CAP CORP". Can I match A and B based on the first word in the text? I mean can i write a code that tells that "Biotech Capital Corp" matches "BIOTECH CAP CORP" based on teh first word in the two strings "biotech" ?

Answer 1

[Jan]

A_list = {'Biotech Capital Corp', 'Apple something', 'tesla something else'};
B_list = {'Volvo Car AB', 'BIOTECH CAP CORP', 'TESLA by Elon Musk'};

A1 = strtok(A_list, ' ');
B1 = strtok(B_list, ' ');

[LiA, LocB] = ismember(lower(A1), lower(B1));   % Or the other way around

Or with FEX: CStrAinBP:

[AInd, BInd] = CStrAinBP(strtok(A_list), strtok(B_list), 'i')

Answer 2

[per isakson]

Yes, try this

match = cssm()
match =
     0     1     0
     0     0     0
     0     0     1

A_list items on the rows and B_list on the columns, i.e.

• the first item in A_list matches the second item in B_list.
• the fourth item in A_list matches the fourth item in B_list.

where

function    match = cssm()
    A_list = {'Biotech Capital Corp', 'Apple something', 'tesla something else'};
    B_list = {'Volvo Car AB', 'BIOTECH CAP CORP', 'TESLA by Elon Musk'};
    match = false( length( A_list ), length( B_list ) );
    for jj = 1 : length( A_list )
        a1  = regexp( A_list{jj}, '\<\w+\>', 'once', 'match' );
        xpr = sprintf( '\\<%s\\>', a1 );
        cac = regexpi( B_list, xpr );
        %
        match( jj, : ) = cellfun( @(pos) not(isempty(pos))&&pos==1, cac );
    end
end

Answer 3

[KSSV]

Read about strcmpi. It compares strings irrespective of what case they are in.

[Danielle Leblance]

I don't think it will work since i am not comparing two complete strings. Rather I would like to compare the first word of two strings.