Splitting A String

Andrew_Stewart · 16 March 2007 13:35

Hello,

What's a (good) way to convert this:

'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'

into this:

[ 'a', 'quick', 'brown fox', 'jumped', 'over the lazy', 'dog' ] ?

Thanks!

Regards,
Andy Stewart

Guest5 · 16 March 2007 13:47

Andrew Stewart wrote:

> What's a (good) way to convert this:

'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'

into this:

[ 'a', 'quick', 'brown fox', 'jumped', 'over the lazy', 'dog' ] ?

require 'csv'
CSV.parse_line('a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog', ' ')

regards
Jan

···

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

Satish_Talim · 16 March 2007 13:51

Do this -
'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'.split

Satish Talim
Learning Ruby - http://rubylearning.com/

···

On 3/16/07, Andrew Stewart <boss@airbladesoftware.com> wrote:

Hello,

What's a (good) way to convert this:

'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'

into this:

[ 'a', 'quick', 'brown fox', 'jumped', 'over the lazy', 'dog' ] ?

Thanks!

Regards,
Andy Stewart

Xavier_Noria · 16 March 2007 14:14

Can quotes be escaped? If not there's a simple regexp that does the job:

str = 'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'
puts str.scan(/"([^"]*)"|(\w+)/).flatten.select {|s| s}

You can also handle slashes, but it gets uglier.

-- fxn

···

On Mar 16, 2007, at 2:35 PM, Andrew Stewart wrote:

Hello,

What's a (good) way to convert this:

'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'

into this:

[ 'a', 'quick', 'brown fox', 'jumped', 'over the lazy', 'dog' ]

Logan_Capaldo · 16 March 2007 14:25

Hello,

What's a (good) way to convert this:

'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'

into this:

[ 'a', 'quick', 'brown fox', 'jumped', 'over the lazy', 'dog' ] ?

Here's yet another way:

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'test/unit'
require 'strscan'
class TestScan < Test::Unit::TestCase
  def test_splitter
    assert_equal( %w(a b c), splitter(%q{a b c}))
    assert_equal(["the", "\"quick brown\"", "fox", "jumped", "over", "the", "lazy", "dog"], splitter(%{the "quick brown" fox jumped over the lazy dog}))
  end
end

def splitter(s)
  res =
  scanner = StringScanner.new(s)
  scanner.skip(/\s*/)
  until scanner.eos?
    if scanner.scan(/"/)
      # quoted string
      scanner.scan(/([^"]*")/)
      res << '"' + scanner[1]
    elsif scanner.scan(/(\S+)/)
      res << scanner[1]
    end
    scanner.skip(/\s*/)
  end
  res
end
__END__

···

On Fri, Mar 16, 2007 at 10:35:01PM +0900, Andrew Stewart wrote:

Thanks!

Regards,
Andy Stewart

Brendan_Baldwin · 16 March 2007 14:53

s = 'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'
a = s.split(/"([^"]+)"/).map{|s|s.strip}

···

On 3/16/07, Andrew Stewart <boss@airbladesoftware.com> wrote:

Hello,

What's a (good) way to convert this:

'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'

into this:

[ 'a', 'quick', 'brown fox', 'jumped', 'over the lazy', 'dog' ] ?

Thanks!

Regards,
Andy Stewart

Lou_Scoras · 17 March 2007 01:16

Not a good solution by any means, but somebody might find it
interesting. Assumes balanced quotes, no escaping, etc.

require 'enumerator'

    def my_split s
      s.split('"') . # Just split on the quote
        to_enum(:each_slice,2) . # ... and deal w/ pairs
        inject([]) {
           >a,(e,o)| a .
                     concat(
                        e.split(' ') + # Split unquotes
                        [o] # Stuff in quotes is okay as is
                     )
        } .
        compact # Finnally remove nils
    end

···

--
Lou.

George3 · 17 March 2007 05:53

If you're looking for shell-quoting-like behavior, I actually think
it's more appropriate to use shellwords for this:

irb(main):001:0> require 'shellwords'
=> true
irb(main):002:0> Shellwords.shellwords 'a quick "brown fox" jumps
"over the lazy" dog'
=> ["a", "quick", "brown fox", "jumps", "over the lazy", "dog"]

It will also handle sloshing:

irb(main):003:0> Shellwords.shellwords 'a\ b c'
=> ["a b", "c"]

And distinguish between single and double quotes (for better or for worse):

irb(main):004:0> Shellwords.shellwords %{"a\\"a"}
=> ["a\"a"]
irb(main):005:0> Shellwords.shellwords %{'a\\'}
=> ["a\\"]

Shellwords is in the standard library.

Regards,
George.

···

On 3/17/07, Andrew Stewart <boss@airbladesoftware.com> wrote:

Hello,

What's a (good) way to convert this:

'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'

into this:

[ 'a', 'quick', 'brown fox', 'jumped', 'over the lazy', 'dog' ] ?

Thanks!

James_Edward_Gray_II · 16 March 2007 13:57

Wow, that's mighty clever. I didn't even think of trying that. Nice job.

James Edward Gray II

···

On Mar 16, 2007, at 8:47 AM, Jan Friedrich wrote:

Andrew Stewart wrote:

What's a (good) way to convert this:

'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'

into this:

[ 'a', 'quick', 'brown fox', 'jumped', 'over the lazy', 'dog' ] ?

require 'csv'
CSV.parse_line('a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog', ' ')

James_Edward_Gray_II · 16 March 2007 13:58

Not quite the same. Look again.

James Edward Gray II

···

On Mar 16, 2007, at 8:51 AM, Satish Talim wrote:

On 3/16/07, Andrew Stewart <boss@airbladesoftware.com> wrote:

Hello,

What's a (good) way to convert this:

'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'

into this:

[ 'a', 'quick', 'brown fox', 'jumped', 'over the lazy', 'dog' ] ?

Thanks!

Regards,
Andy Stewart

Do this -
'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'.split

Andrew_Stewart · 16 March 2007 14:02

Hello Jan,

···

On 16 Mar 2007, at 13:47, Jan Friedrich wrote:

Andrew Stewart wrote:

What's a (good) way to convert this:

'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'

into this:

[ 'a', 'quick', 'brown fox', 'jumped', 'over the lazy', 'dog' ] ?

require 'csv'
CSV.parse_line('a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog', ' ')

Nice!

Thank you!
Andy Stewart

Guest5 · 16 March 2007 14:04

Satish Talim wrote:

'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'.split

This was also my first idea, but

['a', 'quick', '"brown', 'fox"', 'jumped', '"over', 'the', 'lazy"',
'dog'] != ['a', 'quick', 'brown fox', 'jumped', 'over the lazy', 'dog']

regards
Jan

···

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

Xavier_Noria · 16 March 2007 14:21

Heh, reading it I recalled there's a more specific idiom for that last select:

str = 'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'
puts str.scan(/"((?:\\.|[^"])*)"|(\w+)/).flatten.compact

-- fxn

···

On Mar 16, 2007, at 3:14 PM, Xavier Noria wrote:

On Mar 16, 2007, at 2:35 PM, Andrew Stewart wrote:

Hello,

What's a (good) way to convert this:

  'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'

into this:

  [ 'a', 'quick', 'brown fox', 'jumped', 'over the lazy', 'dog' ]

Can quotes be escaped? If not there's a simple regexp that does the job:

  str = 'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'
  puts str.scan(/"([^"]*)"|(\w+)/).flatten.select {|s| s}

Xavier_Noria · 16 March 2007 15:05

Preserving part of the separator is a good trick, but the split itself is wrong:

["a quick", "brown fox", "jumped", "over the lazy", "dog"]

-- fxn

···

On Mar 16, 2007, at 3:53 PM, Brendan Baldwin wrote:

s = 'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'
a = s.split(/"([^"]+)"/).map{|s|s.strip}

Andrew_Stewart · 19 March 2007 10:38

If you're looking for shell-quoting-like behavior, I actually think
it's more appropriate to use shellwords for this:

[snip]

Shellwords is in the standard library.

Thanks for the pointer -- I didn't know about Shellwords.

Regards,
Andy Stewart

···

On 17 Mar 2007, at 05:53, George Ogata wrote:

Satish_Talim · 16 March 2007 14:08

Sorry, I goofed!!

Satish

···

On 3/16/07, Jan Friedrich <frdrch@web.de> wrote:

Satish Talim wrote:
> 'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'.split
This was also my first idea, but

['a', 'quick', '"brown', 'fox"', 'jumped', '"over', 'the', 'lazy"',
'dog'] != ['a', 'quick', 'brown fox', 'jumped', 'over the lazy', 'dog']

regards
Jan

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

Xavier_Noria · 16 March 2007 14:27

Sorry, that regexp was part of a test and got copied by accident. I just meant to clean up the select, that's:

str = 'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'
puts str.scan(/"([^"]*)"|(\w+)/).flatten.compact

-- fxn

···

On Mar 16, 2007, at 3:21 PM, Xavier Noria wrote:

puts str.scan(/"((?:\\.|[^"])*)"|(\w+)/).flatten.compact

Kyle_Schmitt · 16 March 2007 15:36

OK this was my answer, but it didn't quite work...
I need to work harder on my regexes I guess
s = 'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'
a = s.gsub(/("[a-z]*) ([a-z ]*")/i,"#{$1}_#{$2}")
a.each_index{|i| a[i].gsub!('_',' ')}

Robert_K1 · 16 March 2007 14:40

And solutions with #inject:

irb(main):010:0> require 'enumerator'
=> true
irb(main):011:0> str = 'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'
=> "a quick \"brown fox\" jumped \"over the lazy\" dog"
irb(main):012:0> str.to_enum(:scan, /"([^"]*)"|(\S+)/).inject() {|a,m| a << m.compact!.shift}
=> ["a", "quick", "brown fox", "jumped", "over the lazy", "dog"]
irb(main):013:0> str.to_enum(:scan, /"([^"]*)"|(\S+)/).inject() {|a,(m,n)| a << (m||n)}
=> ["a", "quick", "brown fox", "jumped", "over the lazy", "dog"]

But honestly, I found Jan's solution much more elegant. Great stuff!

Kind regards

robert

···

On 16.03.2007 15:27, Xavier Noria wrote:

On Mar 16, 2007, at 3:21 PM, Xavier Noria wrote:

  puts str.scan(/"((?:\\.|[^"])*)"|(\w+)/).flatten.compact

Sorry, that regexp was part of a test and got copied by accident. I just meant to clean up the select, that's:

  str = 'a quick "brown fox" jumped "over the lazy" dog'
  puts str.scan(/"([^"]*)"|(\w+)/).flatten.compact

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Splitting A String

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