From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2008-03-17T22:09:52+09:00
Subject: Re: Replacing based on regular ecpressions

On 17.03.2008 13:45, T K wrote:
> I'm writing a ruby script that does a batch search-and-replace command.
> 
> In each line of the file that is opened, I would like to delete part
> of the entire part matched by a regrex. For example,
> 
> 
> line.gsub(/(Tennis\/Soccer\/.+?).+?){

That's not a valid regular expression as far as I can see.  So the whole 
piece of code is not valid Ruby code.

>  puts $& # entire match
>  puts $1 # the first match

puts is not going to work for replacements.

> }
> 
> I can successfuly identify the parts I need in the regres, now I want
> to only keep the first match. Something like "$&" - "$1".

Err, what?  Can you please be a bit more specific?  What is it that you 
want to match and what is your expected output?

Did you maybe mean

line.gsub! %r{Tennis/Soccer/(.+?)}, '\\1'

Note though that .+? will match a single character most of the time if 
you do not place another expression with a more specific pattern afterwards.

> I tried different methods such as String#delete, but they didn't work for me.

String#gsub and #gsub! are fine.  You just need to use them properly.

Kind regards

	robert