Regex help

ruby-talk
1

Hey there list
     I hope you geniuses can help me with a little regex and date magic.
Say that I have a string like this:

"SPT_051205.jpg"

How could I strip out the numbers that stand for the date and convert it to look like this:

"May 12 2005"

Any suggestions are much appreciated!
Thanks-
-Ezra Zygmuntowicz
Yakima Herald-Republic
WebMaster
509-577-7732
ezra@yakima-herald.com

2

Ezra Zygmuntowicz wrote:

Say that I have a string like this:

"SPT_051205.jpg"

How could I strip out the numbers that stand for the date and convert
it to look like this:

"May 12 2005"

"SPT_051205.jpg".scan(/(\d\d)(\d\d)(\d\d)/) do |a|
  puts Time.mktime(a[2].to_i + 2000, a[0].to_i, a[1].to_i).strftime("%b %d %Y")
end

Enjoy,
        nikolai

···

--
Nikolai Weibull: now available free of charge at http://bitwi.se/\!
Born in Chicago, IL USA; currently residing in Gothenburg, Sweden.
main(){printf(&linux["\021%six\012\0"],(linux)["have"]+"fun"-97);}

3

Ezra Zygmuntowicz wrote:

"SPT_051205.jpg"

How could I strip out the numbers that stand for the date and convert it to look like this:

"May 12 2005"

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'date'
def date_from_special_string(s)
  /(\d\d)(\d\d)(\d\d)/.match s
  month = $1
  day = $2
  year = "20#{$3}"
  Date::parse("#{month}/#{day}/#{year}").strftime("%B %d %G")
end

puts date_from_special_string "SPT_051205.jpg"

There was a little ambiguity in the example (Was the month the first 05, or was that the year?), so you may need to swap the $1 and $3.

Hope that was helpful.

Pete

4

Ezra Zygmuntowicz wrote:

Say that I have a string like this:

"SPT_051205.jpg"

How could I strip out the numbers that stand for the date and convert
it to look like this:

"May 12 2005"

"SPT_051205.jpg".scan(/(\d\d)(\d\d)(\d\d)/) do |a|
  puts Time.mktime(a[2].to_i + 2000, a[0].to_i, a[1].to_i).strftime("%b %d %Y")
end

Enjoy,
        nikolai

Thanks so much Nikolai it works perfect!
-Ezra

--
Nikolai Weibull: now available free of charge at http://bitwi.se/\!
Born in Chicago, IL USA; currently residing in Gothenburg, Sweden.
main(){printf(&linux["\021%six\012\0"],(linux)["have"]+"fun"-97);}

-Ezra Zygmuntowicz
Yakima Herald-Republic
WebMaster
509-577-7732
ezra@yakima-herald.com

···

On Jun 10, 2005, at 5:21 PM, Nikolai Weibull wrote:

5

Thanks Pete, that helps a lot as well. I guess I should have picked a better example too. But you got it right the first 05 is the month and the last one was the year. I'll take care to use an unambiguous sample next time.

Thanks!

-Ezra Zygmuntowicz
Yakima Herald-Republic
WebMaster
509-577-7732
ezra@yakima-herald.com

···

On Jun 10, 2005, at 5:28 PM, Pete Elmore wrote:

Ezra Zygmuntowicz wrote:

"SPT_051205.jpg"
How could I strip out the numbers that stand for the date and convert it to look like this:
"May 12 2005"

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'date'
def date_from_special_string(s)
    /(\d\d)(\d\d)(\d\d)/.match s
    month = $1
    day = $2
    year = "20#{$3}"
    Date::parse("#{month}/#{day}/#{year}").strftime("%B %d %G")
end

puts date_from_special_string "SPT_051205.jpg"

There was a little ambiguity in the example (Was the month the first 05, or was that the year?), so you may need to swap the $1 and $3.

Hope that was helpful.

Pete

6

Pete Elmore wrote:

Ezra Zygmuntowicz wrote:

> "SPT_051205.jpg"

  Date::parse("#{month}/#{day}/#{year}").strftime("%B %d %G")

Are you sure %G is what you want here? I’m betting that the dates
generated for the names of these JPEGs aren’t conforming to ISO 8601 and
timezone settings. Or perhaps I’m misunderstanding the usefulness of
%G. Also, Ezra, the use of the fifth month (May) was ambiguous, as it’s
unclear whether you want the full month name (%B) or its three-letter
abbreviation (%b).

There was a little ambiguity in the example (Was the month the first
05, or was that the year?), so you may need to swap the $1 and $3.

The <year><day><month> template is definitely one of the weirder ones,
although <month><day><year> is certainly a bit weird as well :-),
        nikolai

···

--
Nikolai Weibull: now available free of charge at http://bitwi.se/\!
Born in Chicago, IL USA; currently residing in Gothenburg, Sweden.
main(){printf(&linux["\021%six\012\0"],(linux)["have"]+"fun"-97);}