# Splitting text string

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/splitting-text-string/185563>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [March 22, 2010, 7:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/splitting-text-string/185563 "2010-03-22T19:27:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![xman2000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/x/9d8465/32.png) [@xman2000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/xman2000)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 7:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/splitting-text-string/185563/1 "2010-03-22T19:27:58Z")

</div>

I am working on a way to process the status of products and I want to  
use a bar code reader to make things easier. I already have the scanner  
which simply reads the bar code into the keyboard port and appends a  
carriage return. I was thinking of printing bar codes that would  
contain information which is useless externally but useful to my app.  
For instance…

Bar code: 123456789  
Which would break down into:

order (first three) =\> 123  
product (next five) =\> 45678  
status (last digit) =\> 9

I would then use a nested form to feed the information in the database.

My question is… I get the string from the barcode reader as one long  
string of numbers with no delimiters so how do I break that string down?  
I can make sure the position of the values is the same in the barcode  
when we print them but split and chunk both want a delimiter. Thanks,

stephen

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![xman2000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/x/9d8465/32.png) [@xman2000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/xman2000)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/splitting-text-string/185563/2 "2010-03-22T19:34:16Z")

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> order (first three) =\> 123  
> stephen  
> Use ranges as an index:

~$ irb  
irb(main):001:0\> barcode = ‘123456789’  
=\> “123456789”  
irb(main):002:0\> order = barcode[0…2]  
=\> “123”  
irb(main):003:0\> product = barcode[3…7]  
=\> “45678”  
irb(main):004:0\> status = barcode[8…8]  
=\> “9”

-Jonathan N.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![xman2000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/x/9d8465/32.png) [@xman2000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/xman2000)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 7:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/splitting-text-string/185563/3 "2010-03-22T19:38:58Z")

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Jonathan N. wrote:

> > order (first three) =\> 123  
> > stephen  
> > irb(main):004:0\> status = barcode[8…8]  
> > =\> “9”
> 
> -Jonathan N.

Another idea:

$ irb -r scanf

> > “123456789”.scanf("%3d%5d%1d")  
> > =\> [123, 45678, 9]

(note that the strings are converted to integers for you)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![xman2000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/x/9d8465/32.png) [@xman2000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/xman2000)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 9:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/splitting-text-string/185563/4 "2010-03-22T21:50:37Z")

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Joel VanderWerf wrote:

> Jonathan N. wrote:
> 
> > > order (first three) =\> 123  
> > > stephen  
> > > irb(main):004:0\> status = barcode[8…8]  
> > > =\> “9”
> > 
> > -Jonathan N.
> 
> Another idea:
> 
> $ irb -r scanf
> 
> > > “123456789”.scanf("%3d%5d%1d")  
> > > =\> [123, 45678, 9]
> 
> (note that the strings are converted to integers for you)

Another:

raise “Bad barcode” unless “123456789” =~ /\A(\d{3})(\d{5})(\d)\z/  
order, product, status = $1, $2, $3

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![xman2000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/x/9d8465/32.png) [@xman2000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/xman2000)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 10:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/splitting-text-string/185563/5 "2010-03-22T22:07:05Z")

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Joel VanderWerf wrote:

> Another idea:
> 
> $ irb -r scanf
> 
> > > “123456789”.scanf("%3d%5d%1d")  
> > > =\> [123, 45678, 9]
> 
> (note that the strings are converted to integers for you)

“123456789”.unpack(“A3A5A1”)  
#=\> [“123”, “45678”, “9”]

I don’t know how to use unpack to deliver integers. Strings may better  
in this case anyway, because leading zero’s survive.