From: Simon Schuster <significants@...>
Date: 2007-08-16T13:46:00+09:00
Subject: Re: excessively verbose request for help with regex and arrays

thanks, but since the time is only going to be used for arithmetic
parsing it for additional information isn't helpful, and the roll-over
will be problematic.

(23:54:45) - (00:03:45) != 00:09:00

as for the use of the data, basically, at this stage, I'm working on
formatting aimlogs into "bookish" dialogue, with an eventual goal of
utilizing lulu.com's API to generate books behind my back. :D maybe
thinking about making a gaim plugin if it turns out, with many more
ideas for what else I could do, but not nearly the ruby rigors I need
to actualize them (yet!!) :P

> Well, you haven't explained what you really want to do with your data
> yet, so that all sounds quite a bit complicated.  Why not start out
> with just a simple split on space:
>
> time, speaker, content = text.split ' ', 3
>
> Then you can parse the time:
>
> require 'time'
> time = Time.parse time
>
> Cut off the ':' on the speaker:
>
> speaker = speaker.sub(/:$/, '')
>
> and you'll be left with:
>
> p time, speaker, content
> Wed Aug 15 20:29:55 -0700 2007
> "awhilewhileaway"
> "I also need to assemble the cover/back, and figure out the innards
> of the aimlog formatting/keyword searches"
>
> --
> Poor workers blame their tools. Good workers build better tools. The
> best workers get their tools to do the work for them. -- Syndicate Wars
>
>
>
>