From: Mark Slagell <ms@...>
Date: 2000-12-21T06:17:47+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:7795] Re: Regex array subscripts

craig duncan wrote:
> 
> I'm just a Ruby-nuby and sparse documentation has me trying to construct
> my own (deeper) explanations for why things work the way they do.  wrt:
> 
> "one 123 two"[/\d+/]   =>  "123"
> 
> even more simply we have:
> 
> "one 123 two"['e 1']   =>  "e 1"
> 
> So, what is confusing is when the documentation says:
> 
> "Arrays are ordered, integer-indexed collections of any object."
> 
> It appears that an integer index is only one way of accessing array
> elements.  Which is what had me confused, because i was led to think
> that /\d/ and /\d+/ both return an (the same) integer.  But apparently
> they return the matched string, which works just fine as an array
> index.  Wierd.

A regexp doesn't "return" an integer in the way you seem to be saying,
but is an argument that String's square-brackets method understands. 
This behavior is documented, so maybe a "deeper" explanation is not
needed. :-)

see http://dev.rubycentral.com/ref/ref_c_string.html#_ob_cb

Also - maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but although arrays and strings
share some characteristics, they are not the same type.

  -- Mark