From: Carlos <angus@...>
Date: 2004-07-07T21:49:27+09:00
Subject: Re: Regexp exercise

["Olivier D." <nkh@SP_tele2_AM.fr>, 2004-07-07 14.37 CEST]
> Hi,
> I have a string from which I want to extract a value. I have found four
> different methods to do it:
> 
> string = "a: 1, b: 2, c: 3"
> # let's say I want the value associated with b (2)
> 
> # 1st method:
> value = string[/b: \d+/][/\d+/]
> 
> # 2nd method:
> value = string.scan(/b: (\d+)/)[0][0]
> 
> # 3rd method:
> value = nil
> string.scan(/b: (\d+)/) { |val| value = val }
> 
> These three methods aren't clean and easy to understand.
> 
> I think that the best way to do it would be to use a simple match
> operator like:
> value = $1 if string =~ /b: (\d+)/
> 
> But on a different thread (http://tinyurl.com/38b27) someone explained
> that using global variables was a bad habit not to take.
> 
> What should I do? Is the $1 method *that* bad? (after all, I just use it
> inside the 'if' loop...)

I don't find it bad, but if you want to avoid it you can do

	matchdata=/b: (\d+)/.match(string) and value=matchdata[1]