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comp.lang.ruby

Greedy and non greedy quantifiers

Dan Kelly

1/17/2008 10:07:00 AM

Im just after a bit of clarification with quantifiers in regular
expressions.
I just want to be sure of the differences between the quantifiers. so
for these various regular expressions,

[a-z]* - this will match any amount lower case letters
[a-z]+ - this will match any amount lower case letters
(whats difference between + and * in this case?)
[a-z]+? -

or

\d* - This will match any amount of digits
\d*? - This will only match none or one number

Please can someone offer some clarification Im still unsure of myself
with these expresions as I'm new to ruby,
Thanks,
Dan
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....
4 Answers

Andrew Timberlake

1/17/2008 10:37:00 AM

0

> Im just after a bit of clarification with quantifiers in regular
> expressions.
> I just want to be sure of the differences between the quantifiers. so
> for these various regular expressions,
>
> [a-z]* - this will match any amount lower case letters
> [a-z]+ - this will match any amount lower case letters
> (whats difference between + and * in this case?)
> [a-z]+? -
>
> or
>
> \d* - This will match any amount of digits
> \d*? - This will only match none or one number
>
> Please can someone offer some clarification Im still unsure of myself
> with these expresions as I'm new to ruby,
> Thanks,
> Dan

Dan

* matches 0 or more of the preceding pattern
+ matches 1 or more of the preceding pattern
? matches 0 or 1 of the preceding pattern
{n,m} matches n to m of the preceding pattern

I stand to be corrected but I don't believe that *? or +? are valid at all.

Andrew Timberlake
andrew@andrewtimberlake.com
082 415 8283
skype: andrewtimberlake

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
--Mark Twain

Dan Kelly

1/17/2008 10:46:00 AM

0

Andrew Timberlake wrote:
>> or
>>
>> \d* - This will match any amount of digits
>> \d*? - This will only match none or one number
>>
>> Please can someone offer some clarification Im still unsure of myself
>> with these expresions as I'm new to ruby,
>> Thanks,
>> Dan
>
> Dan
>
> * matches 0 or more of the preceding pattern
> + matches 1 or more of the preceding pattern
> ? matches 0 or 1 of the preceding pattern
> {n,m} matches n to m of the preceding pattern
>
> I stand to be corrected but I don't believe that *? or +? are valid at
> all.


yeah that helps thanks, I think I was just making things up..
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....

Radoslaw Bulat

1/17/2008 11:20:00 AM

0

> puts "aaaabaaaab".match(/.*?b/) # matches "aaab"

It of course matches "aaaab" (missing one 'a')

Robert Klemme

1/19/2008 8:36:00 PM

0

On 17.01.2008 12:17, Rados?aw Bu?at wrote:
> There are 4 (I hope that didn't miss anything) operators to specify repetitions.
>
> *, +, ? and {m, n}
> * - matches 0 or more
> + - matches 1 or more
> ? - matches 0 or 1 (same as {0,1} )
> {m,n} matches m..n
>
> All these operators all greedy (I'll show you examples). To make
> non-greedy operator you must add '?' after operator. So non-greedy
> operators are:
> *?, +?, ??, {m,n}?
> *? - matches 0 or more
> +? - matches 1 or more
> ?? - matches 0 or 1 (same as {0,1}?)
> {m,n} matches m..n
>
> Maybe '??' looks strange, but all of these are absolutely correct.
>
> So far no differences.
>
> Why we have greedy and non-greedy operators? Because they works in
> different way. Greedy operators tries to match as many character
> (precisely: left expression) as can and if during matching it must
> move back it tries to match fewer characters.
>
> For example:
> puts "aaaa".match(/a*/) # matches whole string
> puts "aaaa" =~ /a*?/ # matches no characters (but it success)

But can match more if it needs to to make the match a success:

irb(main):005:0> /a*?/.match("aaab").to_a
=> [""]
irb(main):006:0> /a*?b/.match("aaab").to_a
=> ["aaab"]

> Another example:
> puts "aaaabaaaab".match(/.*b/) # matches whole string
> puts "aaaabaaaab".match(/.*?b/) # matches "aaab"
>
> I always recommend Jeffrey Friedl's book "Mastering Regular
> Expressions" (http://r...). After reading this book you will be
> master of regexp ;-).

Definitively worth reading!

Cheers

robert