From: Maik Schmidt <contact@...>
Date: 2003-11-29T15:32:10+09:00
Subject: Re: regexp  splitting problem

Brett S Hallett wrote:
> 
> ans = tst.split(/[\"|\']/)
Your regex can be simplified, because within a character class the pipe 
character means "match a pipe character" and not "or". Additionally, you 
do not have to escape the quotes, so the resulting regex would be /["']/.
> 
> does this , except that the last set is missing ! ,
> 
That's not totally correct. The last set isn't missing, but the 3rd set 
is empty. For easier debugging try:

   puts text.split(/["']/).join("\n")

> so how do I get the expression to continue processing the line ??
As mentioned before: That isn't the problem. Your are searching for a 
regex that splits a line into tokens. Some of the tokens are enclosed in 
quotes and some are not. Both tokens can contain whitespace. I am not 
sure, if your problem can easily be solved by using a single regex. If 
you can, you should change your input format.

Is the first token always enclosed in [<>] characters? Are the following 
tokens always enclosed in quotes? Then it would be easier to split the 
line, but you still would need more than one split call. Maybe then it 
would fit in a single call of scan?

Cheers,

  <maik/>