From: Vance Heron <heron@...>
Date: 2005-08-14T16:34:43+09:00
Subject: Re: YANQ (yet another newbie question): "string"[0.."e"]

basi wrote:

>Hello,
>
>Is there a way to say in Ruby:
>
>"astring"[0../r/]     #"ast"
>"astring"[/ast/..-1]  #"ring"
>
>In other words, indexing using a "pattern". 
>
>Thanks,
>basi
>  
>
I can't do it with a literal string, but think
this is close.

irb(main):004:0> irb
irb#1(main):001:0> s = 'astring'
=> "astring"
irb#1(main):002:0> s[0..s.index('r')]
=> "astr"
irb#1(main):003:0> s[s.index('ast')..-1]
=> "astring"
irb#1(main):004:0> s[s.index('rin')..-1]
=> "ring"

Note that the index for 'ast' is really 0,
so [/ast/..-1] turns into [0..-1].

HTH,
Vance