Challenge #356: Spelling Bee

[ehallock]

Are you able to upload the file? Or a screenshot of the RegEx config? I was trying to do something similar to this, but not being familiar with RegEx at all, I was having difficulty coming up with the correct expression.

[ehallock]

Spoiler

If you don't mind, would you help me to understand your configuration for the RegEx? I believe that the brackets turn the letters we are looking for into a character set that is then matched against the specified field, right? But then what does the "+" do? 

I was trying to get this to work for ages (Im not familiar with RegEx or perl) and in my looking I didn't come across the use of the "+" combined with the set.

[Amy_smart]

Here is my solution! 

[TungThanhHo]

my solution

[Wasim7568]

Challenge #356: Spelling Bee solution

[sergejs_kutkovics]

Hi, @ehallock !

Yes, you are correct that brackets in a regular expression create a character set, which specifies a group of characters that can match a single character position in the searched text. The "+" symbol in this context is a quantifier that specifies that the preceding character or character set should be matched one or more times.

So in the context of [alteryx]+, this regular expression will match any sequence of characters that starts with the letters "a", "l", "t", "e", "r", "y", or "x" and is followed by one or more repetitions of the same set of characters. For example, "alteryx", "alteryxyxyx", "rex", and "tall" would all match this expression, while "ab" or "challenge" would not.

[Watermark]

Too many tools, not happy with myself, but it's the middle of the night and it was quick. 

Found it ambiguous that the instructions said must use the 'center letter',
           is that second row (middle row?) or does that mean the center field (field 2?)  (obviously you only get the matching answer one way)

Spoiler

 

[FrederikE]

Spoiler

[becky-pattinson]

Spent far too long figuring out how to get started on this one. Definitely tried over-engineering it with macros etc

Spoiler

[Ray_Pospisil]

could be done with manual input of "alteryx" in regex but this would not be so dynamic, should the list be longer