Searching for slightly different versions of one string in another string array

I am looking for slightly diffeerent versions of a string S in the array A. For example, the string S that I am searching for may look like this:

S='ABC12'

but A may contain various versions of it with various numbers of spaces inbetween the characters:

A={'A BC1 2 ' 'XY T67' 'AB C 12' 'RS  U3 2' 'HIJ87' ' A   B  C1 2'}

Here elements 1, 3 & 6 should all come out as matches, no matter how many spaces between or before/after the characters.

Answer 1

[dpb]

>> S='ABC12';
>> A(matches(strrep(A,' ',''),S))
ans =
  1×3 cell array
    {'A BC1 2 '}    {'AB C 12'}    {' A   B  C1 2'}
>> 

You can get more exotic with regexp or with the newfangled pattern, but for the problem as described, I'd go for simple-minded.

[Saeid]

Perfect, thanks!

[Saeid]

By the way, what if A looks like this:

A={'A BC1 2 STRING1' 'XY T67STRING2' 'AB C 12STRING3' 'RS  U3 2STRING4' 'HIJ87STRING5' ' A   B  C1 2STRING6'}

and I want to isolate the S part and delete the rest (or vice versa)?

[dpb]

That depends on just what "STRINGn" contains in the real data set. With a fixed pattern as given, only a minor modification to the above will still work...

>> A={'A BC1 2 STRING1' 'XY T67STRING2' 'AB C 12STRING3' 'RS  U3 2STRING4' 'HIJ87STRING5' ' A   B  C1 2STRING6'};
>> strtrim(extractBefore(A(startsWith(strrep(A,' ',''),S)),'STRING'))
ans =
  1×3 cell array
    {'A BC1 2'}    {'AB C 12'}    {'A   B  C1 2'}
>> 

The assumption of a constant pattern probably won't stand up, so you're probably into a regular expression or using pattern.