From: Gavin Kistner <gavin.kistner@...>
Date: 2006-10-21T01:14:55+09:00
Subject: Re: Problem modifying captured regexp results

From: Paul van Delst [mailto:Paul.vanDelst@noaa.gov] 
> So can someone elaborate on why the above split operation on 
> captured regexp results seems 
> to bugger up the other captured results? Does this issue 
> extend to *any* operation on 
> captured regexp results?

That's what you get for using the (thread-local) global variables that
change with each regexp operation.

Regexp.match returns a MatchData object that will allow you to save your
results from a previous operation and not have them changed by later
code.

See the $~ variable,
http://phrogz.net/ProgrammingRuby/tut_stdtypes.html#objectorientedregula
rexpressions
and
http://phrogz.net/ProgrammingRuby/ref_c_matchdata.html