From: Robert Klemme <bob.news@...>
Date: 2005-10-04T22:36:47+09:00
Subject: Re: Sorry nother regexp/ruby problem

Kev Jackson wrote:
> Robert Klemme wrote:
>
>> Kev Jackson wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Given the following data
>>>
>>> '817-017', 800000, 0, 0, 200000, 200000, 500000, 500000, 500000,
>>> 500000, 60000, 59122, 0, 800000, '817'
>>>
>>> How can I easily just select the first 4 elements (where elements
>>> 2,3 and 4 could be NULL)?
>>>
>>> At the moment I'm trying a regexp of the form
>>>
>>> line.sub!(/(VALUES \(\s*'\w',\s*[0-9]+,\s*[0-9]+,\s*[0-9]+|NULL).+/,
>>> '\1 '+');')
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Why do you use VALUES in the regexp?  I cannot see it in your sample
>> data. It would be easier if you post sample output that you want to
>> see.  I'm not sure about the "first 4" elements (is it characters?
>> is it items in the list?).
>>
>>
> Sorry about that, the original string is part of an insert statement
> INSERT INTO TABLE (FIELD, FIELD, FIELD) VALUES (STUFF, STUFF, STUFF
> etc...);
>
> --------------------------------------
>
> regexp to munge this bit
>
> the first 4 elements would be '817-017', 800000, 0, 0
>
> As someone else pointed out, split is a better tool for this job (and
> indeed having resolved the problem with split and join I now see my
> folly trying to use a regexp)

If it's guaranteed that there are no "," in STUFF you might cook up a
regexp but split is certainly simpler.

    robert