From: "David A. Black" <dblack@...>
Date: 2005-01-29T20:36:28+09:00
Subject: Re: string extraction

Hi --

On Sat, 29 Jan 2005, Navindra Umanee wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have strings of the form:
>
> string='.///root/1068663688//1068824962/1068836207//1068932537///'
>
> Basically, I want to extract the last number in the string.
>
> Right now I'm doing:
>
> string[/(\d*)\/*$/].delete('/')
>
> But I've already matched the digit I want, so the delete is just
> superfluous work.  How can I extract the number without doing a
> separate delete?

You can use a negative-width lookahead:

   string[/(\d*)(?=\/*$)/]


David

-- 
David A. Black
dblack@wobblini.net