From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2009-02-08T21:44:08+09:00
Subject: Re: cannot remove multiple space> nuts!

On 07.02.2009 22:48, Tom Cloyd wrote:
> I have to say that regex's 
> becoming rather fun, now that I'm getting a little control of it.

If you like to dig deeper into the matter, I can recommend 
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596528126/index.html

I covers functionality, different regexp dialects and performance 
considerations thoroughly.  Might be a bit difficult to read if you do 
not have a full CS background but IMHO Jeff Friedl manages to keep 
language theory at a minimum without scarifying precision.

And one more particular Ruby hint: method String#[] is capable of 
working with regular expression arguments, so you can do

# fetch the whole match
ip = input[/\d{1,3}(\.\d{1,3}){3}/]

# fetch group 1
name = input[/name=(\S+)/, 1]

Cheers

	robert