# Labelled text file parsing

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/labelled-text-file-parsing/49282>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [December 2, 2005, 2:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/labelled-text-file-parsing/49282 "2005-12-02T02:58:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![CBlair1986](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/b4bc9f/32.png) [@CBlair1986](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/CBlair1986)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 2:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/labelled-text-file-parsing/49282/1 "2005-12-02T02:58:37Z")

</div>

## Hi. What I’d like to do is to take a file like so:

Apple  
Color: Red  
Peel: Yes  
Has Core: Yes

## Orange Color: Orange Peel: Yes Has Core: No

and go through it, line by line, assigning the ‘Apple’ and ‘Orange’  
lines to a name attribute on different hashes, and then using the name  
before the colons such as ‘Color’ and ‘Peel’ as keys for the respective  
values.

I’m just asking for a bit of help and guidance, as I’m still not very  
keen on using regular expressions that comfortably and all.

Thanks to anyone who helps!

---

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**Author:** ![CBlair1986](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/b4bc9f/32.png) [@CBlair1986](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/CBlair1986)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 3:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/labelled-text-file-parsing/49282/2 "2005-12-02T03:06:42Z")

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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----  
Hash: SHA1

An easier way to do this might be to use YAML ([http://www.yaml.org](http://www.yaml.org))  
which is built into Ruby now.  
Though, if you’d like this to be more of a project some very simple  
RegEx work and running through the text line by line wouldn’t be too  
difficult.

On Dec 1, 2005, at 5:57 PM, CBlair1986 wrote:

> Has Core: No  
> Thanks to anyone who helps!

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----  
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (Darwin)

iD8DBQFDj6vuG9xIoXK+giARAqZWAKDS2jBxdT7uZirjCwY9fDn2kUaTCgCfZoch  
VE2fdfkPtrL1k1JOnR3JSis=  
=9VvV  
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![CBlair1986](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/b4bc9f/32.png) [@CBlair1986](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/CBlair1986)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 3:14am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/labelled-text-file-parsing/49282/3 "2005-12-02T03:14:47Z")

</div>

CBlair1986 wrote:

> Has Core: No  
> How is this file created? It looks very much like YAML, and Ruby ships  
> with a YAML parser, so if you have any say over the file format, make it  
> valid YAML.

Something like this:

Apple :  
Color: Red  
Peel: Yes  
Has Core: Yes

Orange :  
Color: Orange  
Peel: Yes  
Has Core: No

James

–

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![CBlair1986](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/b4bc9f/32.png) [@CBlair1986](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/CBlair1986)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 3:51am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/labelled-text-file-parsing/49282/4 "2005-12-02T03:51:15Z")

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CBlair1986 wrote:

> ## Has Core: No
> 
> and go through it, line by line, assigning the ‘Apple’ and ‘Orange’  
> lines to a name attribute on different hashes, and then using the name  
> before the colons such as ‘Color’ and ‘Peel’ as keys for the respective  
> values.

table = {}  
ARGF.each { |line| line.strip!  
next if line == “”  
fields = line.split( /: +/ )  
if fields.size == 1  
$fruit = fields.first  
table[$fruit] = {}  
else  
table[$fruit][fields.first] = fields.last  
end  
}

p table

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![CBlair1986](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/b4bc9f/32.png) [@CBlair1986](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/CBlair1986)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2005, 8:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/labelled-text-file-parsing/49282/5 "2005-12-05T20:25:31Z")

</div>

William J. wrote:

> end  
> }

OK, I saw your $fruit rationale after removing $ 😉

Here’s a variation:

#---------------------------------------------------  
table = {}; fruit = nil

IO.foreach(‘fruit.txt’) do |line|  
k,v = line.strip.split(/: +/)  
k or next  
v and table[fruit][k] = v or table[fruit=k] = {}  
end  
#---------------------------------------------------

daz

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![CBlair1986](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/b4bc9f/32.png) [@CBlair1986](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/CBlair1986)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2005, 3:26am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/labelled-text-file-parsing/49282/6 "2005-12-02T03:26:54Z")

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On Dec 1, 2005, at 7:57 PM, CBlair1986 wrote:

> Has Core: No  
> Thanks to anyone who helps!  
> I’m in a terrible rush, but see if this code gets you going. Ask  
> questions if you have them and I’ll answer later…

James Edward G. II

#!/usr/local/bin/ruby -w

require “pp”

data = Hash.new

DATA.each\_line("") do |para|  
if para.sub!(/\A \*(.+?) \*\n/, “”)  
data[$1] = Hash[_para.split("\n").map { |line| line.split(/:  
\s_/) }.flatten]  
end  
end

pp data

**END**  
Apple  
Color: Red  
Peel: Yes  
Has Core: Yes

Orange  
Color: Orange  
Peel: Yes  
Has Core: No