From: Logan Capaldo <logancapaldo@...>
Date: 2005-03-17T14:05:20+09:00
Subject: Re: regex question

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 13:46:24 +0900, Joe Van Dyk <joevandyk@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a lot of code that looks like this:
> 
> line = "some line of stuff"
> line =~ /regex stuff here/
> if $1; result = $1; end
> 
> Generally, I'm checking to see if a given regex exists in a string and
> I usually want to save some stuff from it.
> 
> But my way seems kinda clunky...
> 
> 
match_data = line.match(/regular expression/)
unless match_data[1].nil?
           result = match_data[1]
end

match_data[0] is $& 
match_data[1] is $1
etc.
The other advantage being is that you can keep the MatchData object
around after you perform another match, since $1, $2, etc.. will get
over-written