From: Rajinder Yadav <devguy.ca@...>
Date: 2009-12-27T02:03:47+09:00
Subject: Re: How to parse this file

Simone D'Amico wrote:
> Hello guys,
> I have to parse a file of questions/answers for a quizbot in ruby.
> The file is structured in this way:
> "Question" "Answer"\r\n
> "Question2" "Answer2"\r\n
> "Questionn" "Answern"\r\n
> 
> How to parse it efficacely?
> Thank you in advance.
> 
> Simone D'Amico
> *nix powered
> sim@me.com
> 

here is the basic code, output followed by a basic explanation

IO.foreach("testfile.txt") do |line|
    data=line.match /\"(\w+)\"\s+\"(\w+)\"/
    puts data[1] # question
    puts data[2] # answer
end


[output]

Question
Answer
Question2
Answer2
Questionn
Answern


basic explanation: match returns a MatchData object, which can be 
accessed like an array.

you will want to access the 2nd and 3rd position of the MatchData 
object, the first (zero position) holds an array of the entire parsed 
data set.

irb(main):337:0> str='"Question" "Answer"'

irb(main):338:0> data=str.match /\"(\w+)\"\s+\"(\w+)\"/

irb(main):339:0> data[0]
=> "\"Question\" \"Answer\""

irb(main):340:0> data[1]
=> "Question"

irb(main):341:0> data[2]
=> "Answer"


-- 
Kind Regards,
Rajinder Yadav

http://DevMentor.org

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