From: Olivier Renaud <o.renaud@...>
Date: 2007-08-16T03:26:08+09:00
Subject: Re: String parse

Le mercredi 15 ao�t 2007 01:00, anitawa a �crit�:
> Hello,
>
> I want to be able to parse a string and put them into variables.
>
> for example, I have this string:
>
> "Menu: steak_and_egg | date: 0814 | who: Anita"
>
> I want to parse this string to assign variables like so:
>
> menu = "steak_and_egg"
> date = "0814"
> who = "Anita"
>
> What would be the fastest way of doing this.
>
> Thanks

This is a CSV format, You can use the csv lib from the stdlib :

# parse with : and | as delimiters
str = "Menu: steak_and_egg | date: 0814 | who: Anita"
parsed = CSV.parse(str, ":", "|")
=> [["Menu", " steak_and_egg "], [" date", " 0814 "], [" who", " Anita"]]

# then, put the results in a hash
res = {}
parsed.each do |k, v|
res[k.strip] = v.strip
end
=> {"date"=>"0814", "who"=>"Anita", "Menu"=>"steak_and_egg"}

You can also use Enumerable#inject for putting in the Hash (or Hash::[] with 
some adaptations)

-- 
Olivier Renaud