From: Stefano Crocco <stefano.crocco@...>
Date: 2007-03-31T06:28:23+09:00
Subject: Re: simple gsub question \' \` what?

Alle venerd狸 30 marzo 2007, Dustin Anderson ha scritto:
> Sorry for the simple question, I just can't figure this out after a
> couple hours...
> 
> I need to parse a string:
> 
> string = column-1:block-0,block-2,block-1,block-3
> 
> and I need to extract everything before the : (colon) into one variable
> (should end up like this:
> string1 = column-1
> 
> and then the rest of the string (block-0,block-2,block-1,block3) into an
> array...
> 
> How can I use gsub to extract everything before the colon?
> 
> I've looked at the documentation and just can't understand how to use
> the \` or \' syntax...  I want the two new strings to be:
> 
> string1 = column-1
> string2 = ["block-0", "block-2", "block-1", "block-3"]
> 
> I'm thinking it's something like this:
> 
> string.gsub(/:/, "\`")
> 
> really, I just don't get it...
> 
> the documentation that I'm looking at is here:
> http://dev.rubycentral.com/ref/ref_c_string.html
> 
> thanks a bunch!
> -Dustin
> 

I don't think you need gsub here. gsub is used to replace parts of a string 
with other characters. What you need is a regexp. This should work:

string.match( /^([^:]*):(.*)$/ )
string1=$1
string2=$2.split(',')

The regexp will put anything from the beginning of the string until the 
first : (excluded) in the global variable $1 and anything after the : in the 
variable $2. You can then convert $2 to an array of string using the 
String#split method.

I hope this helps

Stefano