From: Jan Fischer <janfischer@...>
Date: 2008-11-13T23:37:11+09:00
Subject: Re: Regular expression for matching spaced letters needed

Hi Rob,

>>>> 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"]

Looks great, thank you very much!

Regards Jan