From: Jonas Bengtsson <caelumse@...>
Date: 2002-07-04T02:25:01+09:00
Subject: Regular Expression problems

Hello,

I got a problem with regular expressions in Ruby. The closest I have
come to a solution looks like this:

_________________________________________________________________
re = /<name: ([a-zA-Z_]+)>\n(.*)(<name:.*)?/m
unprocessed = <<HERE
<name: a_name>
a little content
containing all sorts of
characters, even < and >
<name: another_name>
also containing all sorts
of things
<name: third_name>
i don't know in advance how
many of these there are but
i settle with three here
HERE

match = re.match unprocessed

while match
        name = match[1]
        content = match[2]
        unprocessed = match[3]

        puts "MATCH", "name:#{name}", "content:#{content}",
                "unproc:#{unprocessed}"

        match = re.match unprocessed
end
_________________________________________________________________
Here is the output:
_________________________________________________________________
MATCH
name:a_name
content:a little content
containing all sorts of
characters, even < and >
<name: another_name>
also containing all sorts
of things
<name: third_name>
i don't know in advance how
many of these there are but
i settle with three here
_________________________________________________________________
But I want the output to look like this:
_________________________________________________________________
MATCH
name:a_name
content:a little content
containing all sorts of
characters, even < and >
name:another_name
content:also containing all sorts
of things
name:third_name
content:i don't know in advance how
many of these there are but
i settle with three here
_________________________________________________________________


So the problem is that the second group--(.*)--is too 'hungry' and
doesn't stop on the first occurrence of the third group--(<name:.*).

Is it possible to change this behavior of the second group? Or are
there any better ways to solve this problem?

-- 
Best regards,
 Jonas

I always thought that record would stand until it was broken. 
 - Yogi Berra