From: William James <w_a_x_man@...>
Date: 2006-12-21T07:10:06+09:00
Subject: Re: Regex question: this should be easy but doesn't work as I expect.

Sam Kong wrote:
> Hi William,
>
> William James wrote:
>
> >   /(one) two (?:(three) )?four (five)/
>
> I simplified the actual problem.
> I guess the simplification did not interpret my problem well.
>
> I was parsing html source into price, image, description, etc.
> The image is sometimes missing.
>
> In the example, let's assume that "two" and "four" are arbiturary text.
> So the text might be "...one...three...five" where "..." means some
> arbiturary text.
> If "three" is missing, it will be "...one.....five...".
>
> Can you reconsider the problem please?
>
> Sam

This is prolix, but it works:

a,b,c = 'one', 'three', 'five'

[
  "one two three four five",
  "one two four five"
].each{|s|
  if s =~ /#{a} (.+ )?#{c}/
    if s =~ / #{b} /
      p [a,b,c]
    else
      p [a,nil,c]
    end
  end
}