# Parsing indented plain text

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/parsing-indented-plain-text/84038>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [January 31, 2007, 6:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/parsing-indented-plain-text/84038 "2007-01-31T18:26:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![B\_Mills](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/f6c823/32.png) [@B\_Mills](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/B_Mills)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2007, 6:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/parsing-indented-plain-text/84038/1 "2007-01-31T18:26:47Z")

</div>

Hi.

I’m still kind of new to Ruby and scripting in general, and am trying to  
select specific entries from the plain text output of the Apple System  
Profiler which arranges data like this:

Network:

```
Internal Modem:

  Type: PPP (PPPSerial)
  Hardware: Modem
  BSD Device Name: modem
  IPv4:
      Configuration Method: PPP
  IPv6:
      Configuration Method: Automatic
  Proxies:
      FTP Passive Mode: Yes

Built-in Ethernet:

  Type: Ethernet
  Hardware: Ethernet
  BSD Device Name: en0
  IPv4 Addresses: 10.3.9.249

```

So on and so forth. (There is an XML output option, but it uses the  
Apple plist format, which provides very little useful structure and a  
much larger filesize). I want to find a way to parse this based on the  
number of preceding white spaces at the beginning of the line (and then  
by colon), so I can get a specific property from a Hash:

profile[‘Network:’][‘Built-in Ethernet:’][‘IPv4 Addresses:’]

I started out by using grep to create an array of of each level of  
indentation, and nesting loops to select a range between two indexes of  
that level:

key1 = file.grep(/^\w/)  
key1.each do |k1|  
range1 = file.index(key1[key1.index(k1)]  
if k1 == key1.last  
range2 = range1  
else  
range2 = file.index(key1[key1.index(k1) + 1]  
end  
stub = file[range1…range2]  
key2 = stub.grep(^/\s\s\s\s\w/)  
key2.each do |k2|  
…rinse and repeat…  
key3.each do |k3|

…and so on until I run out of indentation levels. I’m running into  
problems where the loop stops at the last element and won’t dig down  
into anything below it. It also doesn’t handle context, as there are  
duplicate values in the file. I also tend to have the problem of making  
things more complicated than they have to be, so I figure there is a  
more elegant and Ruby-ish way to do this. Any suggestions?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![B\_Mills](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/f6c823/32.png) [@B\_Mills](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/B_Mills)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2007, 6:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/parsing-indented-plain-text/84038/2 "2007-01-31T18:33:47Z")

</div>

On Thu, 1 Feb 2007 02:26:49 +0900  
B Mills [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> ```
> Type: PPP (PPPSerial)
> 
> range2 = range1
> 
> ```
> 
> problems where the loop stops at the last element and won’t dig down  
> into anything below it. It also doesn’t handle context, as there are  
> duplicate values in the file. I also tend to have the problem of making  
> things more complicated than they have to be, so I figure there is a  
> more elegant and Ruby-ish way to do this. Any suggestions?
> 
> –  
> Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/).

This is already built for using YAML… it’s structured as YAML already.  
If this is saved as a file named network.yml, you can do this:  
profile = {}  
File.open(‘network.yml’) { |f| profile = YAML.load(f) }  
You’ll get the following  
=\> {“Network”=\>{“Built-in Ethernet”=\>{“BSD Device Name”=\>“en0”, “IPv4  
Addresses”  
=\>“10.3.9.249”, “Hardware”=\>“Ethernet”, “Type”=\>“Ethernet”}, “Internal  
Modem”=\>{  
“Proxies”=\>{“FTP Passive Mode”=\>true}, “BSD Device Name”=\>“modem”,  
“IPv4”=\>{“Con  
figuration Method”=\>“PPP”}, “IPv6”=\>{“Configuration  
Method”=\>“Automatic”}, “Hard  
ware”=\>“Modem”, “Type”=\>“PPP (PPPSerial)”}}}

Meaning you can do profile[“Network”][“Build-in Ethernet”]…  
You get the idea.  
Gotta go eat lunch now.