Regular Expression Help

Ruby
1

Hi, new to the forum, not new to Ruby but very new to Regular Expression
and they are killing me…

I have strings that look like this:
“— this is a string —” = “— this is a string —”;
" this is a string " = " this is a string ";
“###this is a string” = “###this is a string”;

I need to just get both string on each side to the equal sign, not
including the equal sign. I need to get all spaces or characters inside
the quotes but not including the quotes and not the semi-colon. I need
to compare the two strings. So…

this is a string this is a string

I tried using string.scan/regex/ which I like because it returns an
array. Again Fail.

I’ve tried all kinds of RegEx…I simply don’t know what I’m doing and I
very frustrated. I have been using http://rubular.com/ to experiment but
I’m really not having success…

My most successful attempt, [^"=;] gets pretty much what I need but I
can’t not select the space around the =.

I’ve looked at documentation, used Rubular and have tried a lot of
different things.

Can someone please help me?

Thanks

Brad

2

Am 06.10.2012 01:11, schrieb Brad Askins:

the quotes but not including the quotes and not the semi-colon. I need

My most successful attempt, [^"=;] gets pretty much what I need but I
can’t not select the space around the =.

1.9.3-p194 :001 > text = ‘"— this is a string —" = “— this is a
string —”;’
=> “”— this is a string —" = “— this is a string —”;"
1.9.3-p194 :002 > text.scan(/"(.?)" = "(.?)"/).flatten
=> ["— this is a string —", “— this is a string —”]

3

On Sat, Oct 6, 2012 at 1:21 AM, [email protected] wrote:

1.9.3-p194 :001 > text = ‘“— this is a string —” = “— this is a string
—”;’
=> “"— this is a string —" = "— this is a string —";”
1.9.3-p194 :002 > text.scan(/“(.?)" = "(.?)”/).flatten
=> [“— this is a string —”, “— this is a string —”]

I’d rather use an approach which explicitly includes the “=” sign, for
example

irb(main):026:0> text = ‘“— this is a string —” = “— this is a
string —”;’
=> “"— this is a string —" = "— this is a string —";”
irb(main):027:0> if %r{“([^”])"\s=\s*“([^”]*)“} =~ text then p $1, $2
end
“— this is a string —”
“— this is a string —”
=> [”— this is a string —", “— this is a string —”]

If one wants to allow escaped quotes inside the string things get a
bit more tricky but that’s doable as well:

irb(main):028:0> text = ‘“— this is an escaped quote: "” = “—
this is a string —”;’
=> “"— this is an escaped quote: \"" = "— this is a string
—";”
irb(main):029:0> if %r{“((?:\.|[^”\]))"\s=\s*“((?:\.|[^”\])*)“}
=~ text then p $1, $2 end
“— this is an escaped quote: \"”
“— this is a string —”
=> [”— this is an escaped quote: \"", “— this is a string —”]

Of course, you could also include the trailing “;” in the match to be
even more restrictive.

irb(main):030:0> if
%r{“((?:\.|[^”\]))"\s=\s*“((?:\.|[^”\]))"\s;} =~ text then p
$1, $2 end
“— this is an escaped quote: \"”
“— this is a string —”
=> [“— this is an escaped quote: \"”, “— this is a string —”]

Kind regards

robert

4

Am 06.10.2012 12:12, schrieb Robert K.:

On Sat, Oct 6, 2012 at 1:21 AM, [email protected] wrote:

1.9.3-p194 :001 > text = ‘“— this is a string —” = “— this is a string
—”;’
=> “"— this is a string —" = "— this is a string —";”
1.9.3-p194 :002 > text.scan(/“(.?)" = "(.?)”/).flatten
=> [“— this is a string —”, “— this is a string —”]

I’d rather use an approach which explicitly includes the “=” sign

???

It does.

5

text.scan(/"(.?)" = "(.?)"/).flatten

That worked awesome!!

So I was getting pretty close. I see what I was doing wrong now that I
see the solution.

That’s for your help.

I need more practice on RegEx.

Thanks again.

Brad

6

On Sat, Oct 6, 2012 at 12:25 PM, [email protected] wrote:

I’d rather use an approach which explicitly includes the “=” sign

???

It does.

Right you are. I let myself irritate by your usage of String#scan.
Sorry for that.

I do not think this is a case for #scan though since according to the
OP’s description the String only contains one “assignment”. So it’s
either “match” or “don’t match”.

Kind regards

robert