From: "David A. Black" <dblack@...>
Date: 2008-05-01T23:55:20+09:00
Subject: Re: splitting with a regex & keeping a ref?

Hi --

On Thu, 1 May 2008, Kyle Schmitt wrote:

> I'm writing some scripts to help handle some ornery samba servers we
> have: part of that is unfortunately reading the config scripts that
> have built up over the years.
>
> I was hoping to use the standard string method as a quick &
> not-so-dirty way of parsing the files, given that samba uses a very
> simple format.
>
> #the sample_data variable is defined below
> irb(main):sample_data.split(/\[[a-z0-9]+\]/i)
> => ["", "\ncomment = shared directory for the shop\npath =
> /dept/shop\nvalid u ....(truncated)
> Gives good results, but omits what's between the brackets.  I expected
> that part.
>
> irb(main):sample_data.split(/(\[[a-z0-9]+\])/i)
> => ["", "[shop]", "\ncomment = shared directory for the shop\npath =
> /dept/sho ....(truncated)
> Neat, gives me the data between the brackets in an element before the
> data itself.
>
>
> I know quite well I can zip through that array again, but I was
> wondering, hoping, that there would be a way of accessing that back
> reference in a block as part of the split.

I'm afraid I can't quite follow that sentence. What do you mean by a
back reference? Can you show some sample desired output?


David

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