A regexp for an include? method

Ruby
1

Hi,

I want to see if a certain pattern is inside an array. I tried:
myArray.flatten.include?(/myPattern/)

but it always return false. Why? Is it because the “include?” doesn’t
takes
regular expressions?
Here’s another example that I tried inside an irb session:

data = [“TC_TP1”, “TC_TP2”, “TC_TP3”]
=>[“TC_TP1”, “TC_TP2”, “TC_TP3”]
data.include?(/TC_TP/)
=> false
data.include?(/TC_TP.*/)
=> false
data.include?(/TC_TP1/)
=> false
data.include?(“TC_TP1”)
=> true !!!

Thanks for your help.

2

Boucher, Eric [email protected] wrote:

=>[“TC_TP1”, “TC_TP2”, “TC_TP3”]
data.include?(/TC_TP/)
=> false
data.include?(/TC_TP.*/)
=> false
data.include?(/TC_TP1/)
=> false
data.include?(“TC_TP1”)
=> true !!!

Thanks for your help.

It’s because include? uses #eql? or == for comparison while regexp
matching
is done via === and =~. You can use #find, #select or #any?

irb(main):042:0> data.find {|x| /TC_TP/ =~ x}
=> “TC_TP1”
irb(main):043:0> data.find {|x| /XTC_TP/ =~ x}
=> nil
irb(main):044:0> data.select {|x| /XTC_TP/ =~ x}
=> []
irb(main):045:0> data.select {|x| /TC_TP/ =~ x}
=> [“TC_TP1”, “TC_TP2”, “TC_TP3”]
irb(main):046:0> data.any? {|x| /TC_TP/ =~ x}
=> true
irb(main):047:0> data.any? {|x| /YTC_TP/ =~ x}
=> false

I’d go for any? as it short circuits, i.e. terminates after the first
successful match.

Kind regards

robert
3

What about using:
data.match(/TC_TP/)
should return nil if it doesn’t match, otherwise returns the matching
string.

4

On Feb 22, 2006, at 6:52 AM, Boucher, Eric wrote:

data = [“TC_TP1”, “TC_TP2”, “TC_TP3”]
=>[“TC_TP1”, “TC_TP2”, “TC_TP3”]
data.include?(/TC_TP/)
=> false
data.include?(/TC_TP.*/)
=> false
data.include?(/TC_TP1/)
=> false
data.include?(“TC_TP1”)
=> true !!!

You can use grep() for this:

data = [“TC_TP1”, “TC_TP2”, “TC_TP3”]
=> [“TC_TP1”, “TC_TP2”, “TC_TP3”]

data.grep(/TC_TP/)
=> [“TC_TP1”, “TC_TP2”, “TC_TP3”]

!data.grep(/TC_TP/).empty?
=> true

Hope that gives you some fresh ideas.

James Edward G. II

5

[email protected] wrote:

What about using:
data.match(/TC_TP/)
should return nil if it doesn’t match, otherwise returns the matching
string.

It doesn’t return the matching string but an object of type MatchData.
The
matched string can be extracted from that. Another form is to use
String#[]
with regexp, like

arr.any? {|s| s[/TC_TP/]}

Kind regards

robert
6

Boucher, Eric wrote:

=>[“TC_TP1”, “TC_TP2”, “TC_TP3”]
data.include?(/TC_TP/)
=> false
data.include?(/TC_TP.*/)
=> false
data.include?(/TC_TP1/)
=> false
data.include?(“TC_TP1”)
=> true !!!

Thanks for your help.

myArray.flatten.grep(/myPattern/)