From: Rob Biedenharn <Rob@...>
Date: 2008-11-13T21:10:32+09:00
Subject: Re: Regular expression for matching spaced letters needed


On Nov 13, 2008, at 6:14 AM, Peter Szinek wrote:

>>> please tell me, if this isn't the right place to ask.
>>> I am looking for a regular expression which matches "spaced words"  
>>> in a sentence like, for example, "M I L L E R" or "B u s h" and  
>>> replaces them with "Miller" or "Bush".
>>> I found out that sub!(/\s?([A-Z])\s([A-Z])\s([A-Z])\s([A-Z])\s([A- 
>>> Z])\s?/,' \1\2\3\4\5 ') works for 4 Letters. (Analogue for any  
>>> other fix number.) But I just can't figure out how to match any  
>>> number and how to don't match any letters of surrounding words.
>>> "A B C D E" -> "ABCDE"
>>> "a b c d" -> "abcd"
>>> "hello A B C test" -> "hello ABC test"
>>> Think you got it. Which regexp will do the job?
>>> Regards Jan
>
> The regexp version I came up with:
>
> >> "A B C D E F G".scan(/\s?([A-Z])/).flatten.join('')
> => "ABCDEFG"
>
> Cheers,
> Peter
> ___
> http://www.rubyrailways.com
>


Well, not a regexp by itself, but this seems to work:

irb> strings = ["A B C D E", "a b c d e", "hello A B C world"]
=> ["A B C D E", "a b c d e", "hello A B C world"]
irb> strings.map {|input| input.gsub(/\b(?:\w\s)+\w\b/) {|m| m.gsub(/ 
\s/, '')} }
=> ["ABCDE", "abcde", "hello ABC world"]

-Rob

Rob Biedenharn		http://agileconsultingllc.com
Rob@AgileConsultingLLC.com