From: Vincent Fourmond <vincent.fourmond@9online.fr>
Date: 2006-10-31T19:08:47+09:00
Subject: Re: String#split: unxepected result

Kirill Shutemov wrote:
> irb(main):001:0> "aabbcc".split(/bb/)
> => ["aa", "cc"]
> irb(main):002:0> "aabbcc".split(/(bb)/)
> => ["aa", "bb", "cc"]
> irb(main):003:0> "aabbcc".split(/bb(c)?/)
> => ["aa", "c", "c"]
> 
> The last two result is unexpected for me. Can anybody explain it?

  You have a capturing group in the last RE. In this case, split also
returns capturing groups. See for instance

>> str = "abcd"
=> "abcd"
>> p str.split(/(b)/)
["a", "b", "cd"]

  The string is split into "a" and "cd", and in the middle you get the
result of the capturing group, "b". You want a non-capturing group,
(?:c) instead of (c)

  Cheers !

	Vince

-- 
Vincent Fourmond, PhD student
http://vincent.fourmond.neuf.fr/