From: Jonathan Nielsen <jonathan@...>
Date: 2010-03-23T03:33:34+09:00
Subject: Re: splitting text string

> I am working on a way to process the status of products and I want to
> use a bar code reader to make things easier.  I already have the scanner
> which simply reads the bar code into the keyboard port and appends a
> carriage return.  I was thinking of printing bar codes that would
> contain information which is useless externally but useful to my app.
> For instance...
>
> Bar code:  123456789
> Which would break down into:
>
> order (first three) => 123
> product (next five) => 45678
> status (last digit) => 9
>
> I would then use a nested form to feed the information in the database.
>
> My question is... I get the string from the barcode reader as one long
> string of numbers with no delimiters so how do I break that string down?
> I can make sure the position of the values is the same in the barcode
> when we print them but split and chunk both want a delimiter.  Thanks,
>
> stephen

Use ranges as an index:

~$ irb
irb(main):001:0> barcode = '123456789'
=> "123456789"
irb(main):002:0> order = barcode[0..2]
=> "123"
irb(main):003:0> product = barcode[3..7]
=> "45678"
irb(main):004:0> status = barcode[8..8]
=> "9"

-Jonathan Nielsen