accessing all matches using regex

[Spike Grobstein]

Hey all

so, I primarily use PERL for creating shell scripts but I'm trying to
learn ruby since it feels like it could do more of what I want with
cleaner code. I especially like the way it has regex built right in.

I'm running into an issue though, because in perl, I can do this:

while (/href=\"([^\"]+)\"/) {
## do stuff...
}

I use this simple regex because it's based around what I use this style
for the most.

I can't figure out how to that in ruby. how can I iterate over all
matches in a string? I could split the lines, but sometimes there may be
two or more matches on a single line.

is there a nice, clean, ruby way to do this?

Thanks!

 

[Jim Marshall]

while (/href=\"([^\"]+)\"/) {
## do stuff...
}
...
I can't figure out how to that in ruby. how can I iterate over all
matches in a string? I could split the lines, but sometimes there may be
two or more matches on a single line.

is there a nice, clean, ruby way to do this?

Have a look at String#scan ("ri String#scan" might do it, depending
upon your installation).
For example,

some_string_with_html.scan(/href=\"([^\"]+)\"/) do |match|
do_stuff_with match
end

 

[Gordon Thiesfeld]

is there a nice, clean, ruby way to do this?

Have a look at String#scan

 

[Spike Grobstein]

look up gsub! for the String class. you can write

some_string.gsub(/href=\"([^\"]+)\"/) do |match|
## do stuff with match
end

i'm pretty sure the above code will work for what you are trying to do.

you know, I thought about String#scan, but for some reason didn't think
it was what I was looking for, but it works sorta nicely. it doesn't
behave exactly how I'd want... but the String#gsub method looks more
like what I'm looking for; this way, I can loop and access my various
$1, $2, etc matches and not have to work with an array that I have to
loop over in a weird way (since I don't use some of matches).

I'll have to play with this a little more.

thanks!