Groovy: comparing items from 2 different lists having different format - arraylist

Question

I've a list
def a = [kitkat lollypop orea android-11]
another list
def b = ["kitkat", "lollypop", "honeycomb", "nougat", "android-11"]
I need to do some task on list a items if they exist in list b if they don't exist in list b then do something else.
One thing to note is list a items are separated by space and no quotes whereas list be is by comma and has items within quotes; due to this things I've tried below did not work.
I've tried the following:
1)
a.split(" ").each{
def itema = it
b.split(",").each{
if(b.contains(itema){
//do something
}
}
//do something else
)
a.split(" ").each{
if(b.split(",").contains(it){
//do something
}
//do something else
}
for(itema in a){
for(itemb in b){
if(itema == itemb){
//do something
}
}
//do something else
}
a.intersect(b)
but this threw exception due to list a having spaces between elements
I think what I want is create a new list from list a by changing it to have comma separated items with quotes and then could use one of the above solution
or is there a better way to do in groovy what I wanted?

Answer 1

You're almost there in examples 1 and 2, but there are a few issues.
I'm going to assume this:
def a = [kitkat lollypop orea android-11]
is actually a String, based on how you're attempting to split it. In my solution I'm going to assume it's this:
def a = "[kitkat lollypop orea android-11]"
Using the String in 'a', take everything between the two brackets. From there, split the String by the space character in order to get a list of items. Then, using this new items list, we're going to go one by one and iterate through list b to see if we have any matches:
def items = a.takeBetween("[", "]")
items.split(/\s/).each {
if (it in b) {
println "I'm in list b - $it"
} else {
println "I'm not in list b - $it"
}
}
This will result in:
I'm in list b - kitkat
I'm in list b - lollypop
I'm not in list b - orea
I'm in list b - android-11