From: Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@...>
Date: 2009-03-14T04:46:13+09:00
Subject: Re: regular expression / gsub question

Mmcolli00 Mom wrote:
> Hi
> Do you know how use a regular expression to get only the scripname from
> the each filename below? I have long filename and I want to pull out a
> segment "scriptname" only. I have been using a regular expression with
> gsub for this.
> 
> filename
> 
> userfilename_scriptname_030109.txt
> userfilename3_scriptname1_031109.txt
> userfilename_scriptname0_031209.txt
> 
> 
> The gsub didn't work because the _ on both sides causes me to delete the
> whole filename. What would you recommend?
> 
> stripfirstpart = filename.gsub(/*_/,"")
> stripsecondpart = filename.gsub(/_.*/,"")

I like using #[] for this because it lets you think in terms of what you 
want to keep rather than what you want to remove.

filename[/_(.*?)_/, 1]

The ? is there in case there are more underscores later in the filename.

-- 
        vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407