# Regular expression help needed

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/regular-expression-help-needed/116242>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [October 3, 2007, 7:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/regular-expression-help-needed/116242 "2007-10-03T19:39:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![wpvanpaassen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/6f9a4e/32.png) [@wpvanpaassen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wpvanpaassen)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2007, 7:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/regular-expression-help-needed/116242/1 "2007-10-03T19:39:10Z")

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I’m trying to write a regular expression for a ruby program. What it  
needs to match is:

```
  0,,\a where 0 is any digit, then 2 commas, a backslash, then any

```

letter.

I have one that works if the expression didn’t have the backslash (which  
isn’t an escape character, but a literal character):

if $inrec =~ /[[:digit:]],[[:alpha:]]/

I’ve tried

if $inrec =~ /[[:digit:]],\[[:alpha:]]/

and

if $inrec =~ /[[:digit:]],[[:alpha:]]/

but neither works. Any ideas would be appreciated!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wpvanpaassen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/6f9a4e/32.png) [@wpvanpaassen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wpvanpaassen)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2007, 7:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/regular-expression-help-needed/116242/2 "2007-10-03T19:53:07Z")

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Peter V. wrote:

> but neither works.  
> Works here.

> > puts “Works!” if ‘0,\a’ =~ /[[:digit:]],\[[:alpha:]]/  
> > Works!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wpvanpaassen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/6f9a4e/32.png) [@wpvanpaassen](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/wpvanpaassen)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2007, 8:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/regular-expression-help-needed/116242/3 "2007-10-03T20:06:12Z")

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Sebastian, right you are! I must have made a typo. Sorry about that!

Sebastian H. wrote:

> Peter V. wrote:
> 
> > but neither works.  
> > Works here.
> 
> > > puts “Works!” if ‘0,\a’ =~ /[[:digit:]],\[[:alpha:]]/  
> > > Works!