From: Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@...>
Date: 2007-10-31T08:24:24+09:00
Subject: Re: Why, oh, why, little regexp?

Daniel Waite wrote:
> 'cost * tax'.match(/([a-z]+)*/).to_a
> => ["cost", "cost"]
> 
> Why?
> 
> I'm reading it as... Take one or more characters between a and z, store
> them into a back reference, then repeat the previous match zero or more
> times.
> 
> Now, that regexp doesn't do what I want it to do, but what it IS doing
> doesn't make sense to me.
> 
> What I'd like is to grab all the "words" in the string. So in the above
> example I'd like two matches, cost and tax.
> 
> Any ideas?

'cost * tax'.scan(/\w+/)
=> ["cost", "tax"]

> PS: match(...).captures always, always returns an empty array...

How are you using it?

"foo".match(/(foo)/).captures
=> ["foo"]
'cost * tax'.match(/([a-z]+)*/).captures
=> ["cost"]

-- 
       vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407