From: Chad Perrin <code@...>
Date: 2011-03-18T15:31:11+09:00
Subject: matching a word in any number of characters

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I have need of some code to match any of a number of words in any number
of characters from the beginning of the word between the smallest number
of characters that will uniquely identify it and the total number of
characters in the word.  My solution so far has been a set of kind of
ugly, but conceptually simple, regular expressions:

    def expand_attribute_arg(attr)
      if attr.to_s.downcase.match(
        /^s[t]?[r]?[e]?[n]?[g]?[t]?[h]?$/
      )
        return 'Strength'
      elsif attr.to_s.downcase.match(
        /^d[e]?[x]?[t]?[e]?[r]?[i]?[t]?[y]?$/
      )
        return 'Dexterity'
      elsif attr.to_s.downcase.match(
        /^co[n]?[s]?[t]?[i]?[t]?[u]?[t]?[i]?[o]?[n]?$/
      )
        return 'Constitution'
      elsif attr.to_s.downcase.match(
        /^i[n]?[t]?[e]?[l]?[l]?[i]?[g]?[e]?[n]?[c]?[e]?$/
      )
        return 'Intelligence'
      elsif attr.to_s.downcase.match(
        /^w[i]?[s]?[d]?[o]?[m]?$/
      )
        return 'Wisdom'
      elsif attr.to_s.downcase.match(
        /^ch[a]?[r]?[i]?[s]?[m]?[a]?$/
      )
        return 'Charisma'
      else
        puts "#{attr} is an invalid attribute value."
        exit(1)
      end
    end

The code works fine, but it just looks ugly and redundant to me, and I
wonder if there's some simple, elegant approach that escapes me at the
moment.  Does anyone have any (fairly simple) ideas for how to tidy that
up a bit?  I keep staring at it and thinking "There should be a way to do
this with an array of the terms to match that doesn't involve eval," but
it's just not coming to me.

--=20
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]

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