regex question

[J. Cooper]

So I am scanning through chat logs looking for messages where I
mentioned "points". My current regex is:
text.scan /^(.*)([-+]?[0-9]+\s+points?)(.*)$/i
So I'd like each match in 3 groups:
1. The message up until the part containing the points
2. The points part. This could have a + or - prefix, 1 or more digits,
and an optional s after point
3. The rest of the message line.

My problem is, the (.*) is eating up parts that I would like to appear
in group 2. I just bought a book on regex but I'm not very far yet
Any help would be appreciated!

 

[Paul]

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

You could try matching anything that's not a -, + or number in your first
group, e.g.

([^-+0-9]*)

Note that I'm assuming Ruby uses Perl Compatible Regular Expressions

Cheers,

Paul

 

[J. Cooper]

You could try matching anything that's not a -, + or number in your
first
group, e.g.

([^-+0-9]*)

Note that I'm assuming Ruby uses Perl Compatible Regular Expressions

Cheers,

Paul

But then a message like:
"I'm 3 years old and have 80 points"
wouldn't come out right, correct?

 

[Sebastian Hungerecker]

My current regex is:
text.scan /^(.*)([-+]?[0-9]+\s+points?)(.*)$/i
[...]
My problem is, the (.*) is eating up parts that I would like to appear
in group 2.

Make it non-greedy: (.*?)

HTH,
Sebastian

 

[J. Cooper]

Make it non-greedy: (.*?)

HTH,
Sebastian

Life saver. Thanks!