From: Charles Hixson <charleshixsn@...>
Date: 2013-04-19T02:40:54+09:00
Subject: Match against multiple patterns problem

What I would want to do, if it were legal code would be:
         if    not s.is_a?(String)    or    len(s) < 1    then    
return    ["1",""]
         if    (m = /^[^\W_]+/.match(s) ) !== nil    then    return    
["a", m[0]]
         elsif    (m = /^\s+/.match(s) ) != nil      then    return    
["s", m[0]]
         elsif    (m = /^[[:cntrl:]]+/) != nil       then    return    
["c", m[0]]
         elsif    (m = /^[[:punct:]_]+/) != nil      then    return    
["p", m[0]]
         elsif    (m = /^[^\w\s[:cntrl:][:punct:]]+/) != nil
                                                     then    return    
["r", m[0]]
But this isn't legal, because one can't do an assignment within a logic 
test (any expression?).
So what SHOULD I do?  I can double the length of the code by pulling the 
assignments out, and
interleaving tests and assignments, but that's ugly (i.e., it makes the 
code harder to read).  Any better choices?

-- 
Charles Hixson