# Problem with a regular expression

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problem-with-a-regular-expression/72038>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [October 13, 2006, 7:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problem-with-a-regular-expression/72038 "2006-10-13T19:57:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 7:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problem-with-a-regular-expression/72038/1 "2006-10-13T19:57:24Z")

</div>

I have the following code snippet:

```
require 'net/http'
     begin
          hdoc =

```

Net::HTTP.get(URI.parse(‘[Symbol Lookup from Yahoo Finance](http://finance.yahoo.com/lookup?s=Dupont&t=S&m=US)’))

```
          re = /<TD>(.*)</TD>/
          if hdoc =~ re
               print "#{$&}\n"
          else
               print "Nothing\n"
          end
     end

```

The regular expression is never matched when I use the code as shown  
above (the expression for re is just a simple one for my testing).  
However, if I replace the variable name hdoc by a string like  
“TestTest1”, the regular expression is matched. The type of  
hdoc is String. What is wrong with the snippet above. I even tried to  
replace hdoc by hdoc.to\_s and it still doesn’t work.  
Thanks for your help!

Charles

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 8:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problem-with-a-regular-expression/72038/2 "2006-10-13T20:19:39Z")

</div>

Hi,

On Sat, Oct 14, 2006 at 02:55:10AM +0900, removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
wrote:

> ```
> else
> 
> ```
> 
> Thanks for your help!  
> It looks like there are no upper case “TD” tags in the page that you are  
> fetching. Try this instead:

begin  
hdoc =  
Net::HTTP.get(URI.parse(‘[Symbol Lookup from Yahoo Finance](http://finance.yahoo.com/lookup?s=Dupont&t=S&m=US)’))

```
re = /<TD>(.*)<\/TD>/i
if hdoc =~ re
  print "#{$&}\n"
else
  print "Nothing\n"
end

```

end

Your regular expression was case sensitive, I changed it to be case  
insensitive by adding the “i” switch.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 8:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problem-with-a-regular-expression/72038/3 "2006-10-13T20:29:46Z")

</div>

On Oct 13, 2006, at 1:55 PM, removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid wrote:

> ```
> print "Nothing\n"
> end
> end
> 
> ```

Whrn I substitute ‘/TD’ for ‘/TD’ and make the regex case  
insensitive, I get a match. See below:

`
! /usr/bin/env ruby -w
require 'net/http'
hdoc = Net::HTTP.get(URI.parse('http://finance.yahoo.com/lookup?
s=Dupont&t=S&m=US'))
re = /(.*)<\/TD>/i ### note changes
if hdoc =~ re
    puts "#{$&}\n"
else
    puts "Nothing\n"
end

Symbol Lookup 

Name:
Type:
Market:

 Stocks ETFs Indices Mutual Funds Futures 
U.S. & CanadaWorld Market

View supported exchanges

2 results for 'Dupont' (type=Stocks,
market=U.S. & Canada)
Regards, Morton

`

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 9:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problem-with-a-regular-expression/72038/4 "2006-10-13T21:06:33Z")

</div>

Morton G. wrote:

> > ```
> > print "#{$&}\n"
> > 
> > ```
> 
> require ‘net/http’  
>   
> name=“t”\> Stocks \<option
> 
> Regards, Morton

Morton, Aaron,

You are both right, thanks a lot! I also added “m” at the end of the  
regular expression to match whatever might span two lines.  
Cheers!

Charles

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 9:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problem-with-a-regular-expression/72038/5 "2006-10-13T21:00:25Z")

</div>

> ```
> re = /<TD>(.*)</TD>/
> 
> ```

Use a HTML parser? Hpricot considered sexy recently.

David V.