From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2011-01-19T19:10:37+09:00
Subject: Re: Problem populating a hash with regex results

On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 5:40 AM, RichardOnRails
<RichardDummyMailbox58407@uscomputergurus.com> wrote:

> This is my current idea for succinct code to support further data
> analysis:
>
>        field_names =%w<Name Shares Opened_MDY Closed_MDY Proceeds Cost
> GainLoss>
>        h = {}
>        (1..field_names.size).each { |name| h[name] = eval($ + i.to_s) }
>
> Of course, that doesn't work,  but despite my perusing of Pragmatic's
> Programming Ruby, 2nd ed.,  I haven't so far figured out how to code
> that third line.  Any ideas.  If you're too busy, or whatever,  don't
> bother responding and I'll post about it tomorrow.

If you are on 1.9 there is a better approach: named capture groups.
These let you use your MatchData object like a Hash:

Ruby version 1.9.2
irb(main):001:0> rx = /(?'name'\w+)\s*=\s*(?'value'\S+)/
=> /(?'name'\w+)\s*=\s*(?'value'\S+)/
irb(main):002:0> md = rx.match " foo = 123 "
=> #<MatchData "foo = 123" name:"foo" value:"123">
irb(main):003:0> md[:name]
=> "foo"
irb(main):004:0> md[:value]
=> "123"
irb(main):005:0> md.names
=> ["name", "value"]
irb(main):006:0>

Note, there is an alternative syntax: (?<a name>rx)

See http://www.geocities.jp/kosako3/oniguruma/doc/RE.txt

Kind regards

robert

-- 
remember.guy do |as, often| as.you_can - without end
http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/