Regular Expression newbie question about upper & lower case

ruby-talk
1

I want to check for both upper & lower case answers when a user keys in
a response to a question, but I haven't been able to find an example of
the syntax. What I'm looking for is something like this:

    If $ans = [Yy]*

I know this syntax isn't correct, but what I want it to do is accept Y,
y, yes, YeS, yippee, etc. Would someone mind posting an example?
Thanks....

···

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2

Peter Vanderhaden wrote:

I want to check for both upper & lower case answers when a user keys in
a response to a question, but I haven't been able to find an example of
the syntax. What I'm looking for is something like this:

    If $ans = [Yy]*

I know this syntax isn't correct, but what I want it to do is accept Y,
y, yes, YeS, yippee, etc. Would someone mind posting an example?
Thanks....

something like

a =~ /^y/i

will do

···

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

3

Peter Vanderhaden wrote:

I want to check for both upper & lower case answers when a user keys in
a response to a question, but I haven't been able to find an example of
the syntax. What I'm looking for is something like this:

    If $ans = [Yy]*

I know this syntax isn't correct, but what I want it to do is accept Y,
y, yes, YeS, yippee, etc. Would someone mind posting an example?
Thanks....

If you only care whether the first character is a y you can just do
if ans =~ /^y/i #(match beginning of the line followed by a y,
                  # ignoring case)
or
if ans[0,1].lowercase == "y"

If you just want y, yes, yippee, yeah and yo, but you don't want "you suck" or
yodeling, you could use this:
if ans =~ /^y$|yes|yippee|yeah|yo/i

HTH,
Sebastian

···

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4

Thank you much. Does the i at the end of the expression indicate
case-insensitivity?

SpringFlowers AutumnMoon wrote:

···

Peter Vanderhaden wrote:

I want to check for both upper & lower case answers when a user keys in
a response to a question, but I haven't been able to find an example of
the syntax. What I'm looking for is something like this:

    If $ans = [Yy]*

I know this syntax isn't correct, but what I want it to do is accept Y,
y, yes, YeS, yippee, etc. Would someone mind posting an example?
Thanks....

something like

a =~ /^y/i

will do

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

5

Peter Vanderhaden wrote:

Does the i at the end of the expression indicate
case-insensitivity?

Yes.

···

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ICQ: 205544826

6

Peter Vanderhaden wrote:

a =~ /^y/i

Thank you much. Does the i at the end of the expression indicate
case-insensitivity?

yes, it is a modifier, and i for case insensitivity and m for multiline
for a dot "." to match everything including a "\n" character.

···

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