From: RLMuller@... (Richard)
Date: 2003-05-26T15:18:10+09:00
Subject: Modified "showRE" anomalies

I modified "showRE" demonstrated in the online version of Programming
Ruby.  My purpose was to have what struck me as a more convenient way
of analyzing the nuances of Ruby's implementation of Regular
Expressions. My mod is:

def applyRE(a,re)  
  if a =~ re  
    puts "Val '#{a}', Pat '#{re}' ==>  #{$`}<<#{$&}>>#{$'}"  
  else  
    puts "Val '#{a}', Pat '#{re}' ==>  no match"  
  end  
end  

v1 = '12.34'
p1 = '/^\d*\.?/'

applyRE(v1, /^\d*\.?/)	# Val '12.34', Pat '#<Regexp:0x2a6aa68>' ==> 
<<12.>>34
applyRE(v1, p1)		# Val '12.34', Pat '/^\d*\.?/' ==>  no match

The first invocation with a literal pattern argument applies the
pattern correctly but doesn't display the pattern as a string, which I
intended.

The second invocation with a variable argument containing the pattern
displays the pattern as intended but doesn't apply the pattern as
intended.

Is there a simple way to correct my error(s)?

TIA,
Richard