From: Austin Ziegler <halostatue@...>
Date: 2005-05-13T04:43:55+09:00
Subject: Re: More informative return value for Regexp

On 5/12/05, Logan Capaldo <logancapaldo@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is there a way to get a Regexp to tell you if it didn't match because
> it won't match with the current input, or if it doesn't match (yet)
> but potentially could with more input? Failing that, is there an
> alternative regexp library for ruby that will allow that? I ask
> becasue I'd like to do something along the lines of:
> 
> File.open(some_file) do |f|
>         f.scan(/a regex/) do |res|
>                 # do something with res
>        end
> end
> 
> I realise I could just load the whole file into memory, but that seems
> kind of well, icky.

There is a discussion around something related to this on RCRchive.
The upshot of the discussion is that it is not possible with regexen
in general, and lies way outside of the bounds of regexen.

-austin
-- 
Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com
               * Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca