From: Robert Klemme <bob.news@...>
Date: 2006-03-10T20:38:43+09:00
Subject: Re: Small regexp question

francisrammeloo@hotmail.com wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I am writing some refactoring code for a C++ project.
>
> I need to change:
>
>      class MyClass
>      {
>       ...
>      }
>
> to:
>
>      class IMP_EXP MyClass
>     {
>      ...
>     }
>
> The pattern I used to find a class definition line is:
>
>     line =~ /^\s*class\s+(\w+)/
>
> But I want to exclude forward class declarations ( class MyClass; )
>
> So I changed my pattern to:
>
>     line =~ /^\s*class\s+(\w+)\s*[^;]/    --> don't match if line ends
> with ";"
>
> But it doesn't work... Why?

Because the match simply stops before the ";".

>> line = 'class Foo;'
=> "class Foo;"
>> line[/^\s*class\s+(\w+)\s*[^;]/]
=> "class Foo"

If you want to make sure there is no ";" between the class name and the
end of the line you need to anchor the RX at the end:

>> line = 'class Foo;'
=> "class Foo;"
>> line[/^\s*class\s+(\w+)[^;]*$/]
=> nil
>> line = 'class Foo'
=> "class Foo"
>> line[/^\s*class\s+(\w+)[^;]*$/]
=> "class Foo"

Kind regards

    robert