From: Shajith CT <demerzel@...>
Date: 2004-07-04T21:41:08+09:00
Subject: Re: Regular expression question

Hiya!

Use this:
 str.gsub!(/\{b\}(.*?)\{\/b\}/, '<b>\1</b>')

Note the '?' in the regular expression: to make the match non-greedy.
Which in English means that it will match till the first "{/b}", and
not till the last possible one, which is the default case for some
reason. Which is why your regex was matching the longest possible
match of <b>...</b> in the string.

See http://www.regular-expressions.info/repeat.html 
(Parent site's a pretty good regex reference)

-CT

On Sun, 4 Jul 2004 21:22:43 +0900, George Moschovitis <gm@navel.gr> wrote:
> Hello everyone!
> 
> I have a question regarding regular expressions. Let me explain
> with an example. I have the string:
> 
> "{b}Text{/b} kokoko {b}Lalal{/b}"
> 
> and i want to convert it to this string
> 
> "<b>Text</b> kokoko <b>Lalal</b>"
> 
> if I use the following gsub:
> 
> str.gsub!(/\{b\}(.*)\{\/b\}/, '<b>\1</b>')
> 
> I get:
> 
> "<b>Text{/b} kokoko {b}Lalal</b>"
> 
> not what I want. If I use
> 
> str.gsub!(/\{b\}([^\{]*)\{\/b\}/, '<b>\1</b>')
> 
> I get the correct anwser, but i dont like this
> regular expression. Does ruby support an equivalent
> to the /g option that perl provides? If not is there
> a workaround? I would like to use something like:
> 
> str.gsub!(/\{b\}(.*)\{\/b\}/g, '<b>\1</b>')
> 
> Any help will be apreciated!
> 
> George Moschovitis
> 
> --
> http://www.joy.gr
> 
>