Determine if a sentence is an inquiry

Question

How can I detect if a search query is in the form of a question?

For example, a customer might search for \"how do I track my order\" (notice no question mark).

Answer 1

I took a stab at this... my goal was to do something lightweight that wouldn't require additional libraries, and would give each developer the ability to control a few necessary elements - such as padding certain chars, using negative contractions as first word position only, and allowing for common question elements. I created two functions, that when you pass in a value from an Angular6 HTML page, it does a pretty good job for most of my cases...

I don't include "don't" as a starter word because it can be a statement as many times as a question. Don't you think?

Angular HTML:

.ts functions:

  isQuestion(sentence: string = this.value){
    var q_elements : string[] = ["who", "what", "when", "where", "why", "how", "?"];
    var q_starters : string[] = ["which", "won't", "can't", "isn't", "aren't", "is", "do", "does", "will", "can", "is"];
    var temp = sentence.toLowerCase();
    var padChars : string[] = ["?", "-", "/"];
    var i : number = 0;
    for (i=0; i < padChars.length; i++) {
      temp = this.padChar(temp, padChars[i]);
    }
    var splitted = temp.split(" ");
    // console.log(splitted);
    if (q_starters.includes(splitted[0])) {
      // console.log('found a question with a starter');
      return true;
    } else {
      return q_elements.some(function (v) {
        return splitted.indexOf(v) >= 0;
      });
    }
  }

  padChar(myString : string, myChar : string) {
    var position = myString.indexOf(myChar);
    var output : string = myString;
    while(position > 0 && position < output.length) {
      if (output.charAt(position - 1) != " ") {
        output = [output.slice(0, position), " ", output.slice(position)].join('');
        position = output.indexOf(myChar, position);
      }
      if (position + 1 < output.length) {
        if (output.charAt(position + 1) != " ") {
          output = [output.slice(0, (position + 1)), " ", output.slice(position + 1)].join('');
          position = output.indexOf(myChar, position);
        }
      }
      position = output.indexOf(myChar, position + 1);
    }
    return output;
  }