From: Gavin Kistner <gavin@...>
Date: 2005-06-23T13:36:06+09:00
Subject: Re: Getting a list of results from one regular expression

On Jun 22, 2005, at 8:30 PM, tietyt@gmail.com wrote:
> To summarize my whole question: how do I get EVERY match of a regular
> expression (instead of just the first)?

In addition to the correct response given by others (String#scan),  
you might also want to look at the StringScanner class. It gives you  
the ability to crawl through a string with successive regexp calls,  
where each new call starts at the new 'current' position.

story = <<ENDSTORY
Hello World! There are 3 cats in my house, with 4 feet each.

6 of those 12 feet have 5 claws each; the other 6 feet have 4 claws  
each.

Ow, my back. 54 claws need clipping.
ENDSTORY

require 'strscan'
scanner = StringScanner.new( story )

info = []
count_nouns = /(\d+) (\w+)/

until scanner.eos?
   break unless scanner.scan_until( count_nouns )
   tidbit = {
     :full_match => scanner[0],
     :count => scanner[1].to_i,
     :noun => scanner[2]
   }
   info << tidbit
end

require 'pp'
pp info
info.each{ |tidbit|
   puts "Of %7s, I saw %02d" % [ tidbit[:noun], tidbit[:count] ]
}



[{:noun=>"cats", :count=>3, :full_match=>"3 cats"},
{:noun=>"feet", :count=>4, :full_match=>"4 feet"},
{:noun=>"of", :count=>6, :full_match=>"6 of"},
{:noun=>"feet", :count=>12, :full_match=>"12 feet"},
{:noun=>"claws", :count=>5, :full_match=>"5 claws"},
{:noun=>"feet", :count=>6, :full_match=>"6 feet"},
{:noun=>"claws", :count=>4, :full_match=>"4 claws"},
{:noun=>"claws", :count=>54, :full_match=>"54 claws"}]
Of    cats, I saw 03
Of    feet, I saw 04
Of      of, I saw 06
Of    feet, I saw 12
Of   claws, I saw 05
Of    feet, I saw 06
Of   claws, I saw 04
Of   claws, I saw 54