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comp.lang.ruby

regex and lookahead to specific number of chars

Adam Akhtar

2/25/2008 8:29:00 PM

If I have a string such as
"I love ruby, i really do love ruby, oh yes i do blah blah blah"

and i want to insert an asterix at every 10th char whether its a
whitespace, digit whatever how do i go about it

i was trying

string.gsub!(/[.]{10}/, "*")

but it doesnt work

any hints???
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....
6 Answers

F. Senault

2/25/2008 8:39:00 PM

0

Le 25 février à 21:28, Adam Akhtar a écrit :

> and i want to insert an asterix at every 10th char whether its a
> whitespace, digit whatever how do i go about it
>
> i was trying
>
> string.gsub!(/[.]{10}/, "*")

What about string.gsub!(/(.{9})./, '\1*') ?

Fred
--
I know how to hurt I know how to kill I know what to show
And what to conceal I know when to talk And I know when to touch
No one ever died from wanting too much
(Garbage, The World Is Not Enough)

Robert Klemme

2/25/2008 9:38:00 PM

0

On 25.02.2008 21:28, Adam Akhtar wrote:
> If I have a string such as
> "I love ruby, i really do love ruby, oh yes i do blah blah blah"
>
> and i want to insert an asterix at every 10th char whether its a
> whitespace, digit whatever how do i go about it
>
> i was trying
>
> string.gsub!(/[.]{10}/, "*")
>
> but it doesnt work
>
> any hints???

Remove the square brackets around the dot. The dot is meta only outside
of them.

Cheers

robert

Adam Akhtar

2/27/2008 10:41:00 PM

0


Thanks Fred and Robert for that.

I dont understand what the \1 does. I know if i remove it it removes all
the characters before the 10th and if i include it in keeps them. Why is
this?



--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....

Adam Akhtar

2/27/2008 10:43:00 PM

0

oh and a totally newb question but when i try to substitute the asterix
with a newline \n it just prints it instead of creating a newline, why
is that???

i wish there some regex exercises out there instead of the usual
tutorial only stuff.
--
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Mark Bush

2/27/2008 10:52:00 PM

0

Adam Akhtar wrote:

> I dont understand what the \1 does. I know if i remove it it removes all
> the characters before the 10th and if i include it in keeps them. Why is
> this?

When you put a regexp in round brackets, what it matches is remembered.
In a replacement string, you can then refer to them as \1, \2, etc.

> oh and a totally newb question but when i try to substitute the asterix
> with a newline \n it just prints it instead of creating a newline, why
> is that???

Since the replacement string is in single quotes, \n is not special so
represents the two characters \ and n. To get a newline, you need to
put \n in double quotes ("\n"). In double quotes, the backslash quotes
any character, so \1 would become the character with code 1. So in
double quotes, the \1 needs to be \\1 so:

string.gsub!(/(.{9})./, "\\1*")

for the original example and:

string.gsub!(/(.{9})./, "\\1\n")

for the newline example.
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-....

F. Senault

2/28/2008 11:46:00 AM

0

Le 27 février à 23:40, Adam Akhtar a écrit :

> Thanks Fred and Robert for that.
>
> I dont understand what the \1 does. I know if i remove it it removes all
> the characters before the 10th and if i include it in keeps them. Why is
> this?

It's a reference to the first parenthesied group. To decompose the
expression :

( => begin group 1
.{9} => find exactly 9 characters
) => end group 1
. => followed by exactly one character

I replace that whole group by the first group (my 9 characters) and a
star.

There are best ways to do it (especially if you're manipulating very big
strings, I think), but I think it's the clearest.

Fred
--
Full-size scottish highland pipes are loud enough to fall into the
category of 'weaponry', especially if they're played poorly, but it's an
analogue of heavy metal if they're played well.
(Gary S. Callison in the SDM)