How can I determine whether a string contains a substring?

I have directory names that end in '0.0100'. I want to be able to skip certain directories by comparing the substring '0.0100' to the directory name. How can I do this?

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

You can use the 'contains' function to determine whether a string contains a given substring or not. Specifically, 'contains' returns true if the first argument contains the second argument and false otherwise. For example:

>> smallSubstring = '0.0100';
>> largeString1 = 'Item0.0100';
>> largeString2 = 'Item0.0101';
>> contains(largeString1, smallSubstring)

ans =

  logical

   1

>> contains(largeString2, smallSubstring)

ans =

  logical

   0

You may find more information about 'contains' at the following documentation page:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/string.contains.html

[Steven Lord]

If you only want to detect a substring at the end of the larger string, use endsWith instead of contains. The corresponding function for detecting substrings at the beginning is startsWith.

A = ["MATLAB", "laboratory", "collaboration"];
startsWith(A, "lab")

ans = 1×3 logical array
   0   1   0

endsWith(A, "lab", 'IgnoreCase', true) % LAB is close enough to lab

ans = 1×3 logical array
   1   0   0

contains(A, "lab")

ans = 1×3 logical array
   0   1   1

Answer 2

[Royi Avital]

I guess that since MATLAB R2016b it is recommended to use `contains` :

Determine if pattern is in strings - MATLAB contains - MathWorks India