From: Gavin Kistner <gavin@...>
Date: 2005-10-03T22:01:07+09:00
Subject: Re: split without lookbehind

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On Oct 2, 2005, at 1:06 PM, Alex Fenton wrote:
> I'm trying to split a path (like an URL, but not one) into bits on  
> the '/' character.
> Problem is, I want to be able to be able to escape '/' in the names  
> of bits by doubling
> the character to '//' eg
>
> 'foo/bar // baz/qux'
> => ["foo", "bar / baz", "qux"]

Lookbehind is what you want; until we get it in core ruby, I've  
provided an example of another way to get the above. I've used commas  
instead of / just to help make the regexp easier to understand -  
substitute with "\/" as appropriate:

str = 'foo,bar ,, baz,qux,,,jorb,jing,,,,blat'
out = []
str.scan( /(.+?[^,],{2}*)(?:,(?!,)|$)/ ){ |a,b|
     out << a.gsub( ',,', ',' )
}
p out
#=> ["foo", "bar , baz", "qux,", "jorb", "jing,,blat"]
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