Regex ignore whitespace in target string

ruby-talk
1

Hi,

Does anyone know how to ignore whitespace in the target string (Not in
the expression itself, which is what I believe /x does)?

eg question.match(/\{(male|female),[0-99][0-99]\%\}/)

# "{male/female,50%}" vs # "{male/female, 50%}"

Thanks,
Dave

···

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2

You can use \s* to match 0 or more "whitespace" characters, for example

/\{ # opening {
  ((?:fe)?male) # male or female stored into $1
  , # a comma
  \s* # zero or more spaces
  0*?(100|[1-9]\d|\d)% # soak up leading 0s and then have a valid percentage (0 - 100) -> $2
  % # then an %
  \} # then a closing }
/x

might do what you want. You can play with it at Rubular: \{((?:fe)?male), \s* 0*?(100|[1-9]\d|\d)%\} to see if it does

Hope this helps,

Mike

···

On Feb 2, 2014, at 1:34 PM, Dave Castellano <lists@ruby-forum.com> wrote:

Hi,

Does anyone know how to ignore whitespace in the target string (Not in
the expression itself, which is what I believe /x does)?

eg question.match(/\{(male|female),[0-99][0-99]\%\}/)

# "{male/female,50%}" vs # "{male/female, 50%}"

Thanks,
Dave

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

--

Mike Stok <mike@stok.ca>
http://www.stok.ca/~mike/

The "`Stok' disclaimers" apply.

3

Hi,

Does anyone know how to ignore whitespace in the target string (Not in
the expression itself, which is what I believe /x does)?

eg question.match(/\{(male|female),[0-99][0-99]\%\}/)

# "{male/female,50%}" vs # "{male/female, 50%}"

Thanks,
Dave

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

You can use \s* to match 0 or more "whitespace" characters, for example

/\{ # opening {
((?:fe)?male) # male or female stored into $1
, # a comma
\s* # zero or more spaces
0*?(100|[1-9]\d|\d)% # soak up leading 0s and then have a valid percentage (0 - 100) -> $2

There shouldn't be a % in the line above *and* the line below, I made a mistake while adding comments!

···

On Feb 2, 2014, at 2:30 PM, Mike Stok <mike@stok.ca> wrote:

On Feb 2, 2014, at 1:34 PM, Dave Castellano <lists@ruby-forum.com> wrote:

% # then an %
\} # then a closing }
/x

might do what you want. You can play with it at Rubular: \{((?:fe)?male), \s* 0*?(100|[1-9]\d|\d)%\} to see if it does

Hope this helps,

Mike

--

Mike Stok <mike@stok.ca>
Mike Stok

The "`Stok' disclaimers" apply.

--

Mike Stok <mike@stok.ca>
http://www.stok.ca/~mike/

The "`Stok' disclaimers" apply.

4

Just remove all the whitespace before you match.
question.gsub(/\s+/, '').match ...

···

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5

Hi,

Does anyone know how to ignore whitespace in the target string (Not in
the expression itself, which is what I believe /x does)?

eg question.match(/\{(male|female),[0-99][0-99]\%\}/)

You want "\/" rather than "|" between "male" and "female" to match the
given strings.

# "{male/female,50%}" vs # "{male/female, 50%}"

As Mike said, you can use \s* to match arbitrary sequences of
whitespace (including the empty one).

irb(main):005:0>
"{male/female,50%}".match(/\{(male\/female),\s*[0-99][0-99]\%\}/)
=> #<MatchData "{male/female,50%}" 1:"male/female">
irb(main):006:0> "{male/female,
50%}".match(/\{(male\/female),\s*[0-99][0-99]\%\}/)
=> #<MatchData "{male/female, 50%}" 1:"male/female">

I just notice you have a duplicate 9 in the character class. And you
do not need to escape %. You probably rather want:

/\{(male\/female),\s*\d{1,2}%\}/

Kind regards

robert

···

On Sun, Feb 2, 2014 at 7:34 PM, Dave Castellano <lists@ruby-forum.com> wrote:

--
remember.guy do |as, often| as.you_can - without end
http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/

6

Thanks!
- very helpful.

Dave

···

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