How to return multiple matches in Regexp?

ruby-talk
1

I’m used to the perl modifier /…/g that makes sure that a regexp
matches as many occurrences as possible. How do you do this in Ruby?

Thanks,
Carl Youngblood

2

Hi Carl,

[synack@Evergreen] synack $ ri String.gsub

  • ------------------------------------------------------------ String#gsub
    str.gsub( pattern, replacement ) → aString
    str.gsub( pattern ) {| match | block } → aString
 Returns a copy of str with all occurrences of pattern replaced with
 either replacement or the value of the block. If a string is used
 as the replacement, special variables from the match (such as $&
 and $1) cannot be substituted into it, as substitution into the
 string occurs before the pattern match starts. However, the
 sequences \1, \2, and so on may be used to interpolate successive
 groups in the match. These sequences are shown in Table 22.7 on
 page 376.
 In the block form, the current match is passed in as a parameter,
 and variables such as $1, $2, $`, $&, and $' will be set
 appropriately. The value returned by the block will be substituted
 for the match on each call.
 The result inherits any tainting in the original string or any
 supplied replacement string.
    "hello".gsub(/[aeiou]/, '*')              #=> "h*ll*"
    "hello".gsub(/([aeiou])/, '<\1>')         #=> "h<e>ll<o>"
    "hello".gsub('.') {|s| s[0].to_s + ' '}   #=> "104 101 108 108 111 "

Signed,
Holden Glova

···

On Sat, 26 Oct 2002 15:46, Carl Youngblood wrote:

I’m used to the perl modifier /…/g that makes sure that a regexp
matches as many occurrences as possible. How do you do this in Ruby?

Thanks,
Carl Youngblood

3

Hi –

···

On Sat, 26 Oct 2002, Carl Youngblood wrote:

I’m used to the perl modifier /…/g that makes sure that a regexp
matches as many occurrences as possible. How do you do this in Ruby?

See Holden’s reference to gsub; but also, if you don’t need to sub
anything, there’s String#scan:

ruby -e ‘p “one two three”.scan(/\w+/)’
[“one”, “two”, “three”]

David

–
David Alan Black
home: dblack@candle.superlink.net
work: blackdav@shu.edu
Web: http://pirate.shu.edu/~blackdav

4

aString.scan(aRegexp) → anArray
… may be what you’re looking for.

refer to: http://www.rubycentral.com/book/ref_c_string.html#String.scan

···

On Friday 25 October 2002 10:46 pm, Carl Youngblood wrote:

I’m used to the perl modifier /…/g that makes sure that a regexp
matches as many occurrences as possible. How do you do this in Ruby?

Thanks,
Carl Youngblood