Picked up Ruby recently and have been fiddling around with it. I wanted to learn how to use regex or other Ruby tricks to check for certain words, whitespace characters, valid format etc in a given text line.
Let's say I have an order list that looks strictly like this in this format:
cost: 50 items: book,lamp
One space after semicolon, no space after each comma, no trailing whitespaces at the end and stuff like that.
How can I check for errors in this format using Ruby? This for example should fail my checks:
cost: 60 items:shoes,football
My goal was to split the string by a " " and check to see if the first word was "cost:", if the second word was a number and so on but I realized that splitting on a " " doesn't help me check for extra whitespaces as it just eats it up. Also doesn't help me check for trailing whitespaces. How do I go about doing this?
You could use the following regular expression.
r = /
\A # match beginning of string
cost:\s # match "cost:" followed by a space
\d+\s # match > 0 digits followed by a space
items:\s # match "items:" followed by a space
[[:alpha:]]+ # match > 0 lowercase or uppercase letters
(?:,[[:alpha:]]+) # match a comma followed by > 0 lowercase or uppercase
# letters in a non-capture group (?: ... )
* # perform the match on non-capture group >= 0 times
\z # match the end of the string
/x # free-spacing regex definition mode
"cost: 50 items: book,lamp" =~ r #=> 0 (a match, beginning at index 0)
"cost: 50 items: book,lamp,table" =~ r #=> 0 (a match, beginning at index 0)
"cost: 60 items:shoes,football" =~ r #=> nil (no match)
The regex can can of course be written in the normal manner:
r = /\Acost:\s\d+\sitems:\s[[:alpha:]]+(?:,[[:alpha:]]+)*\z/
or
r = /\Acost: \d+ items: [[:alpha:]]+(?:,[[:alpha:]]+)*\z/
though a whitespace character (\s) cannot be replaced by a space in the free-spacing mode definition (\x).
Related
I'm trying to use Ruby regex to get word combo like below.
In a example below I only need cases 1-4, * marked them in caps for easy testing. Word in the middle (dbo, bcd) could be anything or nothing like in case#3. I have trouble how to get that double period case#3 working. It's also good to get standalone SALES as word too but probably it's too much for one regex ?Tx all guru .
This is my script which partially working, need add alpha..SALES
s = '1 alpha.dbo.SALES 2 alpha.bcd.SALES 3 alpha..SALES 4 SALES
bad cases 5x alpha.saleS 6x saleSXX'
regex = /alpha+\.+[a-z]+\.?sales/ix
puts 'R: ' + s.scan(regex).to_s
##R: ["alpha.dbo.SALES", "alpha.bcd.SALES"]
s = '1 alpha.dbo.SALES 2 alpha.bcd.SALES 3 alpha..SALES 4 SALES
bad cases 5x alpha.saleS 6x saleSXX 7x alpha.abc.SALES.etc'
regex = /(?<=^|\s)(?:alpha\.[a-z]*\.)?(?:sales)(?=\s|$)/i
puts 'R: ' + s.scan(regex).to_s
Output:
R: ["alpha.dbo.SALES", "alpha.bcd.SALES", "alpha..SALES", "SALES"]
r = /
(?<=\d[ ]) # match a digit followed by a space in a positive lookbehind
(?: # begin a non-capture group
\p{Alpha}+ # match one or more letters
\. # match a period
(?: # begin a non-capture group
\p{Alpha}+ # match one or more letters
\. # match a period
| # or
\. # match a period
) # end non-capture group
)? # end non-capture group and optionally match it
SALES # match string
(?!=[.\p{Alpha}]) # do not match a period or letter (negative lookahead)
/x # free-spacing regex definition mode.
s.scan(r)
#=> ["alpha.dbo.SALES", "alpha.bcd.SALES", "alpha..SALES", "SALES"]
This regular expression is customarily written as follows.
r = /
(?<=\d )(?:\p{Alpha}+\.(?:\p{Alpha}+\.|\.))?SALES(?!=[.\p{Alpha}])/
In free-spacing mode the space must be put in a character class ([ ]); else it would be stripped out.
I am writing some code that needs to convert a string to camel case. However, I want to allow any _ or - at the beginning of the code.
I have had success matching up an _ character using the regex here:
^(?!_)(\w+)_(\w+)(?<!_)$
when the inputs are:
pro_gamer #matched
#ignored
_proto
proto_
__proto
proto__
__proto__
#matched as nerd_godess_of, skyrim
nerd_godess_of_skyrim
I recursively apply my method on the first match if it looks like nerd_godess_of.
I am having troubled adding - matches to the same, I assumed that just adding a - to the mix like this would work:
^(?![_-])(\w+)[_-](\w+)(?<![_-])$
and it matches like this:
super-mario #matched
eslint-path #matched
eslint-global-path #NOT MATCHED.
I would like to understand why the regex fails to match the last case given that it worked correctly for the _.
The (almost) full set of test inputs can be found here
The fact that
^(?![_-])(\w+)[_-](\w+)(?<![_-])$
does not match the second hyphen in "eslint-global-path" is because of the anchor ^ which limits the match to be on the first hyphen only. This regex reads, "Match the beginning of the line, not followed by a hyphen or underscore, then match one or more words characters (including underscores), a hyphen or underscore, and then one or more word characters in a capture group. Lastly, do not match a hyphen or underscore at the end of the line."
The fact that an underscore (but not a hyphen) is a word (\w) character completely messes up the regex. In general, rather than using \w, you might want to use \p{Alpha} or \p{Alnum} (or POSIX [[:alpha:]] or [[:alnum:]]).
Try this.
r = /
(?<= # begin a positive lookbehind
[^_-] # match a character other than an underscore or hyphen
) # end positive lookbehind
( # begin capture group 1
(?: # begin a non-capture group
-+ # match one or more hyphens
| # or
_+ # match one or more underscores
) # end non-capture group
[^_-] # match any character other than an underscore or hyphen
) # end capture group 1
/x # free-spacing regex definition mode
'_cats_have--nine_lives--'.gsub(r) { |s| s[-1].upcase }
#=> "_catsHaveNineLives--"
This regex is conventionally written as follows.
r = /(?<=[^_-])((?:-+|_+)[^_-])/
If all the letters are lower case one could alternatively write
'_cats_have--nine_lives--'.split(/(?<=[^_-])(?:_+|-+)(?=[^_-])/).
map(&:capitalize).join
#=> "_catsHaveNineLives--"
where
'_cats_have--nine_lives--'.split(/(?<=[^_-])(?:_+|-+)(?=[^_-])/)
#=> ["_cats", "have", "nine", "lives--"]
(?=[^_-]) is a positive lookahead that requires the characters on which the split is made to be followed by a character other than an underscore or hyphen
you can try the regex
^(?=[^-_])(\w+[-_]\w*)+(?=[^-_])\w$
see the demo here.
Switch _- to -_ so that - is not treated as a range op, as in a-z.
I'm trying to grab id number from the string, say
id/number/2000GXZ2/ref=sr
using
(?:id\/number\/)([a-zA-Z0-9]{8})
for some reason non capture group is not worked, giving me:
id/number/2000GXZ2
As mentioned by others, non-capturing groups still count towards the overall match. If you don't want that part in your match use a lookbehind.
Rubular example
(?<=id\/number\/)([a-zA-Z0-9]{8})
(?<=pat) - Positive lookbehind assertion: ensures that the preceding characters match pat, but doesn't include those characters in the matched text
Ruby Doc Regexp
Also, the capture group around the id number is unnecessary in this case.
You have:
str = "id/number/2000GXZ2/ref=sr"
r = /
(?:id\/number\/) # match string in a non-capture group
([a-zA-Z0-9]{8}) # match character in character class 8 times, in capture group 1
/x # extended/free-spacing regex definition mode
Then (using String#[]):
str[r]
#=> "id/number/2000GXZ2"
returns the entire match, as it should, not just the contents of capture group 1. There are a few ways to remedy this. Consider first ones that do not use a capture group.
#jacob.m suggested putting the first part in a positive lookbehind (modified slightly from his code):
r = /
(?<=id\/number\/) # match string in positive lookbehind
[[:alnum:]]{8} # match >= 1 alphameric characters
/x
str[r]
#=> "2000GXZ2"
An alternative is:
r = /
id\/number\/ # match string
\K # forget everything matched so far
[[:alnum:]]{8} # match 8 alphanumeric characters
/x
str[r]
#=> "2000GXZ2"
\K is especially useful when the match to forget is variable-length, as (in Ruby) positive lookbehinds do not work with variable-length matches.
With both of these approaches, if the part to be matched contains only numbers and capital letters, you may want to use [A-Z0-9]+ instead of [[:alnum:]] (though the latter includes Unicode letters, not just those from the English alphabet). In fact, if all the entries have the form of your example, you might be able to use:
r = /
\d # match a digit
[A-Z0-9]{7} # match >= 0 capital letters or digits
/x
str[r]
#=> "2000GXZ2"
The other line of approach is to keep your capture group. One simple way is:
r = /
id\/number\/ # match string
([[:alnum:]]{8}) # match >= 1 alphameric characters in capture group 1
/x
str =~ r
str[r, 1] #=> "2000GXZ2"
Alternatively, you could use String#sub to replace the entire string with the contents of the capture group:
r = /
id\/number\/ # match string
([[:alnum:]]{8}) # match >= 1 alphameric characters in capture group 1
.* # match the remainder of the string
/x
str.sub(r, '\1') #=> "2000GXZ2"
str.sub(r, "\\1") #=> "2000GXZ2"
str.sub(r) { $1 } #=> "2000GXZ2"
This is Ruby Regexp expected match consistency evilness. Some Regexp-style methods will return the global-match while others will return specified matches.
In this case, one method we can use to get the behavior you're looking for is scan.
I don't think anyone here actually mentions how to get your Regexp working as you originally intended, which was to get the capture-only match. To do that, you would use the scan method like so with your original pattern:
test_me.rb
test_string="id/number/2000GXZ2/ref=sr"
result = test_string.scan(/(?:id\/number\/)([a-zA-Z0-9]{8})/)
puts result
2000GXZ2
That said, replacing (?:) with (?<=) for non-capture groups for look-behinds will benefit you both when you use scan as well as other parts of ruby that use Regexps.
I want to match character pairs in a string. Let's say the string is:
"zttabcgqztwdegqf". Both "zt" and "gq" are matching pairs of characters in the string.
The following code finds the "zt" matching pair, but not the "gq" pair:
#!/usr/bin/env ruby
string = "zttabcgqztwdegqf"
puts string.scan(/.{1,2}/).detect{ |c| string.count(c) > 1 }
The code provides matching pairs where the indices of the pairs are 0&1,2&3,4&5... but not 1&2,3&4,5&6, etc:
zt
ta
bc
gq
zt
wd
eg
qf
I'm not sure regex in Ruby is the best way to go. But I want to use Ruby for the solution.
You can do your search with a single regex:
puts string.scan(/(?=(.{2}).*\1)/)
regex101 demo
Output
zt
gq
Regex Breakout
(?= # Start a lookahead
(.{2}) # Search any couple of char and group it in \1
.*\1 # Search ahead in the string for another \1 to validate
) # Close lookahead
Note
Putting all the checks inside lookahead assure the regex engine does not consume the couple when validates it.
So it also works with overlapping couples like in the string abcabc: the output will correctly be ab,bc.
Oddity
If the regex engine does not consume the chars how it can reach the end of the string?
Internally after the check Onigmo (the ruby regex engine) makes one step further automatically. Most regex flavours behaves in this way but e.g. the javascript engine needs the programmer to increment the last match index manually.
str = "ztcabcgqzttwtcdegqf"
r = /
(.) # match any character in capture group 1
(?= # begin a positive lookahead
(.) # match any character in capture group 2
.+ # match >= 1 characters
\1 # match capture group 1
\2 # match capture group 2
) # close positive lookahead
/x # extended/free-spacing regex definition mode
str.scan(r).map(&:join)
#=> ["zt", "tc", "gq"]
Here is one way to do this without using regex:
string = "zttabcgqztwdegqf"
p string.split('').each_cons(2).map(&:join).select {|i| string.scan(i).size > 1 }.uniq
#=> ["zt", "gq"]
I need a regex pattern which matches a date with optional time.
The date should be a valid U.S. date in m/d/yyyy format. The time should be h:mm:ss am/pm or 24-hour time hh:mm:ss.
Matches: 9/1/2011 | 9/1/2011 10:00 am | 9/1/2011 10:00 AM | 9/1/2011 10:00:00
This pattern will be used in a Ruby on Rails project, so it should be in a format usable via Ruby. See http://rubular.com/ for testing.
Here's my existing date pattern (which may be an over-kill):
DATE_PATTERN = /^((((0[13578])|([13578])|(1[02]))[\/](([1-9])|([0-2][0-9])|(3[01])))|(((0[469])|([469])|(11))[\/](([1-9])|([0-2][0-9])|(30)))|((2|02)[\/](([1-9])|([0-2][0-9]))))[\/]\d{4}$|^\d{4}/
Regular expressions are horrible for this kind of job. If you're using Ruby I'd recommend using DateTime.strptime to parse the data and check its validity:
def validate_date(date_str)
valid_formats = ["%m/%d/%Y", "%m/%d/%Y %I:%M %P"]
#see http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-1.9.3/Time.html#method-i-strftime for more
valid_formats.each do |format|
valid = Time.strptime(date_str, format) rescue false
return true if valid
end
return false
end
Well, here's what I ended up with; using stricter military time:
DATE_TIME_FORMAT = /^([0,1]?\d{1})\/([0-2]?\d{1}|[3][0,1]{1})\/([1]{1}[9]{1}[9]{1}\d{1}|[2-9]{1}\d{3})\s([0]?\d|1\d|2[0-3]):([0-5]\d):([0-5]\d)$/
Matches: 1/19/2011 23:59:59
Captures:
1
19
2011
23
59
59
if subject =~ /\A(?:0?[1-9]|1[012])\/(?:0?[1-9]|[12]\d|3[01])\/(?:\d{4})(?:\s+(?:(?:[01]?\d|2[0-3]):(?:[0-5]\d)|(?:0?\d|1[0-2]):(?:[0-5]\d)\s+[ap]m))?\s*\Z/i
# Successful match
Good luck..
How it works :
"
^ # Assert position at the beginning of the string
(?: # Match the regular expression below
# Match either the regular expression below (attempting the next alternative only if this one fails)
0 # Match the character “0” literally
? # Between zero and one times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy)
[1-9] # Match a single character in the range between “1” and “9”
| # Or match regular expression number 2 below (the entire group fails if this one fails to match)
1 # Match the character “1” literally
[012] # Match a single character present in the list “012”
)
/ # Match the character “/” literally
(?: # Match the regular expression below
# Match either the regular expression below (attempting the next alternative only if this one fails)
0 # Match the character “0” literally
? # Between zero and one times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy)
[1-9] # Match a single character in the range between “1” and “9”
| # Or match regular expression number 2 below (attempting the next alternative only if this one fails)
[12] # Match a single character present in the list “12”
\d # Match a single digit 0..9
| # Or match regular expression number 3 below (the entire group fails if this one fails to match)
3 # Match the character “3” literally
[01] # Match a single character present in the list “01”
)
/ # Match the character “/” literally
(?: # Match the regular expression below
\d # Match a single digit 0..9
{4} # Exactly 4 times
)
(?: # Match the regular expression below
\s # Match a single character that is a “whitespace character” (spaces, tabs, line breaks, etc.)
+ # Between one and unlimited times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy)
(?: # Match the regular expression below
# Match either the regular expression below (attempting the next alternative only if this one fails)
(?: # Match the regular expression below
# Match either the regular expression below (attempting the next alternative only if this one fails)
[01] # Match a single character present in the list “01”
? # Between zero and one times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy)
\d # Match a single digit 0..9
| # Or match regular expression number 2 below (the entire group fails if this one fails to match)
2 # Match the character “2” literally
[0-3] # Match a single character in the range between “0” and “3”
)
: # Match the character “:” literally
(?: # Match the regular expression below
[0-5] # Match a single character in the range between “0” and “5”
\d # Match a single digit 0..9
)
| # Or match regular expression number 2 below (the entire group fails if this one fails to match)
(?: # Match the regular expression below
# Match either the regular expression below (attempting the next alternative only if this one fails)
0 # Match the character “0” literally
? # Between zero and one times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy)
\d # Match a single digit 0..9
| # Or match regular expression number 2 below (the entire group fails if this one fails to match)
1 # Match the character “1” literally
[0-2] # Match a single character in the range between “0” and “2”
)
: # Match the character “:” literally
(?: # Match the regular expression below
[0-5] # Match a single character in the range between “0” and “5”
\d # Match a single digit 0..9
)
\s # Match a single character that is a “whitespace character” (spaces, tabs, line breaks, etc.)
+ # Between one and unlimited times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy)
[ap] # Match a single character present in the list “ap”
m # Match the character “m” literally
)
)? # Between zero and one times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy)
\s # Match a single character that is a “whitespace character” (spaces, tabs, line breaks, etc.)
* # Between zero and unlimited times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy)
$ # Assert position at the end of the string (or before the line break at the end of the string, if any)
"
Remember is not the spoon that bents but you!
Here's what I came up with that seems to work:
regex = /^1?\d{1}\/[123]?\d{1}\/\d{4}(\s[12]?\d:[0-5]\d(:[0-5]\d)?(\s[ap]m)?)?$/