Check if a string contains an element from a list (of strings)

Question

For the following block of code:

For I = 0 To listOfStrings.Count - 1
    If myString.Contains(lstOfStrings.Item(I)) Then
        Return True
    End If
Next         


        

Answer 1

If speed is critical, you might want to look for the Aho-Corasick algorithm for sets of patterns.

It's a trie with failure links, that is, complexity is O(n+m+k), where n is the length of the input text, m the cumulative length of the patterns and k the number of matches. You just have to modify the algorithm to terminate after the first match is found.