From: Thomas Wieczorek <wieczo.yo@...>
Date: 2007-07-06T14:33:12+09:00
Subject: Re: Regex: What does the ^ do? What is it called?

Hi

> /^abc/ =~ "!abc"
> returns nil
> "You can use an anchor to match the beginning of a string"
>

Just like the definition says ^ is used to mark the beginning of a string:
/^abc/ =~ "abc!"
will return 0(the start of your pattern)


> /abc$/ =~ "abc!"
> returns nil
> "You can use an anchor to match the end of a string"

$ is used to mark the end of a string:
/abc$/ =~ "!abc"
will return 0 again.

/^I love Ruby$/ will only match the string "I love Ruby" and not "He
said: I love Ruby".  /I love Ruby/ or /I love Ruby/$ will match /^I
love Ruby$/