From: "Olivier D." <nkh@..._tele2_AM.fr>
Date: 2004-07-07T22:17:37+09:00
Subject: Re: Regexp exercise

On 2004-07-07, Carlos <angus@quovadis.com.ar> wrote:
> ["Olivier D." <nkh@SP_tele2_AM.fr>, 2004-07-07 14.37 CEST]
>> 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]
>

Thanks for the advice. It's just that it took me two days to remember
that the groups of a pattern are put in $1..$9 with the =~ operator.

I discovered that $1 can have two different values:
- nil if a number is not found
- the number found if it exists
Which means: no errors possible from a previous match. $1 has his value
changed every time.

-- 
Olivier D.