I have a big text file. Within this text file, I want to replace all mentions of the word 'pizza' with 'spinach', 'Pizza' with 'Spinach', and 'pizzing' with 'spinning' -- unless those words occur anywhere within curly braces. So {pizza}, {giant.pizza} and {hot-pizza-oven} should remain unchanged.
My best proposed solution so far is to iterate over the file line-by-line, issuing a regex that detects everything before an { or after an }, and using regexes on each of those strings. But that gets really complex and unwieldy and I want to know if there's a proper solution for this problem.
This can be done in a few steps. I'd iterate through the file line by line, and pass each line to this method:
def spinachize line
# list of words to swap
swaps = {
'pizza' => 'spinach',
'Pizza' => 'Spinach',
'pizzing' => 'spinning'
}
# random placeholder for bracketed text
placeholder = 'fdjfafdlskdsfajkldfas'
# save all instances of bracketed text
bracketed_text = line.scan(/\{.*?\}/)
# remove bracketed text from line
line.gsub!(/\{.*?\}/, placeholder)
# replace all swaps
swaps.each do |original_text, new_text|
line.gsub!(original_text, new_text)
end
# re-insert bracketed text
line.gsub(placeholder){bracketed_text.shift}
end
The comments above explain things as we go. Here are a couple of examples:
spinachize "Pizza is good, but more pizza is better"
=> "Spinach is good, but more spinach is better"
spinachize "Leave bracketed instances of {pizza} or {this.pizza} alone"
=> "Leave bracketed instances of {pizza} or {this.pizza} alone"
As you can see, you can specify the items you want swapped, or modify the method to pull the list from a database or flat file somewhere. The placeholder just needs to be something unique that wouldn't come up in the source file naturally.
The process is this: remove bracketed text from the original line, and remember it for later. Swap all text that needs swapping, then add back the bracketed text. It's not a one-liner, but it works well and is readable and easy to update.
The last line of the method might need some clarification. Not many people know that the "gsub" method can take a block instead of a second parameter. That block then determines what gets put in place of the original text. In this case, every time the block is called I remove the first item off our saved bracket list, and use that.
rules = {'pizza' => 'spinach','Pizza' => 'Spinach','pizzing' => 'spinning'}
regexp = /\{[^{}]*\}|#{rules.keys.join('|')}/m
puts(file.read.gsub(regexp) { |s| rules[s] || s })
This constructs a regular expression that matches either bracketed strings or the strings to replace. We then run it through a block that replaces strings with the given value, and will leave bracketed strings unchanged. With the /m flag, the regular expression can tolerate newlines inside the brackets--if that won't happen, you can take it out. Either way, no need to iterate line by line.
str = "Pizza {pizza} with spinach is not pizzing."
swaps = {'{pizza}' =>'{pizza}',
'{Pizza}' =>'{Pizza}',
'{pizzing}'=> '{pizzing}'
'pizza' => 'spinach',
'Pizza' => 'Spinach',
'pizzing' => 'spinning'}
regex = Regexp.union(swaps.keys)
p str.gsub(regex, swaps) # => "Spinach {pizza} with spinach is not spinning."
I would call the following method for each line of the file.
Code
def doit(line)
replace = {'pizza'=>'spinach', 'Pizza'=>'Spinach', 'pizzing'=>'spinning'}
r = /\{.*?\}/
arr= line.split(r).map { |str|
str.gsub(/\b(?:pizza|Pizza|pizzing)\b/, replace) }
line.scan(r).each_with_object(arr.shift) { |str,res|
res << str << arr.shift }
end
Examples
doit("Pizza Primastrada's {pizza} is the best {pizzing} pizza in town.")
#=> "Spinach Primastrada's {pizza} is the best {pizzing} spinach in town."
doit("{Pizza Primastrada}'s pizza is the best pizzing {pizza} in town.")
#=> "{Pizza Primastrada}'s spinach is the best spinning {pizza} in town."
Explanation
line = "Pizza Primastrada's {pizza} is the best {pizzing} pizza in town."
replace = {'pizza'=>'spinach', 'Pizza'=>'Spinach', 'pizzing'=>'spinning'}
r = /\{.*?\}/
a = line.split(r)
#=> ["Pizza Primastrada's ", " is the best ", " pizza in town."]
b = a.map { |str| str.gsub(/\b(?:pizza|Pizza|pizzing)\b/, replace) }
#=> ["Spinach Primastrada's ", " is the best ", " spinach in town."]
keepers = line.scan(r)
#=> ["{pizza}", "{pizzing}"]
keepers.each_with_object(b.shift) { |str,res| res << str << b.shift }
#=> "Spinach Primastrada's {pizza} is the best {pizzing} spinach in town."
Nested braces
If you wish to permit nested braces, change the regex to:
r = /\{[^{}]*?(?:\{.*?\})*?[^{}]*?\}/
doit("Pizza Primastrada's {{great {great} pizza} is the best pizza.")
#=> "Spinach Primastrada's {{great {great} pizza} is the best spinach."
You referred to the string
{words,salad,#{1,2,3} pizza|}
in a comment. If that is part of a string enclosed in single quotes, not a problem. If enclosed in double quotes, however, # will raise a syntax error. Again, no problem, if the pound character is escaped (\#).
Related
I am trying to return all words which have more than four letters in the below exercise.
def timed_reading(max_length, text)
var_b = text.split(" ")
var_b.map do |i|
if i.length >= max_length
return i
end
end
end
print timed_reading(4,"The Fox asked the stork, 'How is the soup?'")
# >> asked
I seem to get only one word.
If you want to filter a list and select only certain kinds of entries, use the select method:
var_b.select do |i|
i.length >= max_length
end
Where that's all you need.
The return i in the middle is confusing things, as that breaks out of the loop and returns a single value from the method itself. Remember that in Ruby, unlike others such as JavaScript, return is often implied and doesn't need to be spelled out explicitly.
Blocks don't normally have return in them for this reason unless they need to interrupt the flow and break out of the method itself.
You don't need to first extract all words from the string and then select those having at least four letters. Instead you can just extract the desired words using String#scan with a regular expression.
str = "The Fox asked the stork, 'How is the soup?'? Très bon?"
str.scan /\p{Alpha}{4,}/
#=> ["asked", "stork", "soup", "Très"]
The regular expression reads, "Match strings containing 4 or more letters". I've used \p{Alpha} (same as \p{L} and [[:alpha:]]) to match unicode letters. (These are documented in Regexp. Search for these expressions there.) You could replace \p{Alpha} with [a-zA-Z], but in that case "Très" would not be matched.
If you wish to also match digits, use \p{Alnum} or [[:alnum:]] instead. While \w also matches letters (English only) and digits, it also matches underscores, which you probably don't want in this situation.
Punctuation can be a problem when words are extracted from the string by splitting on whitespace.
arr = "That is a cow.".split
#=> ["That", "is", "a", "cow."]
arr.select { |word| word.size >= 4 }
#=> ["That", "cow."]
but "cow" has only three letters. If you instead used String#scan to extract words from the string you obtain the desired result.
arr = "That is a cow?".scan /\p{Alpha}+/
#=> ["That", "is", "a", "cow"]
arr.select { |word| word.size >= 4 }
#=> ["That"]
However, if you use scan you may as well use a regular expression to retrieve only words having at least 4 characters, and skip the extra step.
I want to convert all the words(alphabetic) in the string to their abbreviations like i18n does. In other words I want to change "extraordinary" into "e11y" because there are 11 characters between the first and the last letter in "extraordinary". It works with a single word in the string. But how can I do the same for a multi-word string? And of course if a word is <= 4 there is no point to make an abbreviation from it.
class Abbreviator
def self.abbreviate(x)
x.gsub(/\w+/, "#{x[0]}#{(x.length-2)}#{x[-1]}")
end
end
Test.assert_equals( Abbreviator.abbreviate("banana"), "b4a", Abbreviator.abbreviate("banana") )
Test.assert_equals( Abbreviator.abbreviate("double-barrel"), "d4e-b4l", Abbreviator.abbreviate("double-barrel") )
Test.assert_equals( Abbreviator.abbreviate("You, and I, should speak."), "You, and I, s4d s3k.", Abbreviator.abbreviate("You, and I, should speak.") )
Your mistake is that your second parameter is a substitution string operating on x (the original entire string) as a whole.
Instead of using the form of gsub where the second parameter is a substitution string, use the form of gsub where the second parameter is a block (listed, for example, third on this page). Now you are receiving each substring into your block and can operate on that substring individually.
def short_form(str)
str.gsub(/[[:alpha:]]{4,}/) { |s| "%s%d%s" % [s[0], s.size-2, s[-1]] }
end
The regex reads, "match four or more alphabetic characters".
short_form "abc" # => "abc"
short_form "a-b-c" #=> "a-b-c"
short_form "cats" #=> "c2s"
short_form "two-ponies-c" #=> "two-p4s-c"
short_form "Humpty-Dumpty, who sat on a wall, fell over"
#=> "H4y-D4y, who sat on a w2l, f2l o2r"
I would recommend something along the lines of this:
class Abbreviator
def self.abbreviate(x)
x.gsub(/\w+/) do |word|
# Skip the word unless it's long enough
next word unless word.length > 4
# Do the same I18n conversion you do before
"#{word[0]}#{(word.length-2)}#{word[-1]}"
end
end
end
The accepted answer isn't bad, but it can be made a lot simpler by not matching words that are too short in the first place:
def abbreviate(str)
str.gsub(/([[:alpha:]])([[:alpha:]]{3,})([[:alpha:]])/i) { "#{$1}#{$2.size}#{$3}" }
end
abbreviate("You, and I, should speak.")
# => "You, and I, s4d s3k."
Alternatively, we can use lookbehind and lookahead, which makes the Regexp more complex but the substitution simpler:
def abbreviate(str)
str.gsub(/(?<=[[:alpha:]])[[:alpha:]]{3,}(?=[[:alpha:]])/i, &:size)
end
I tried to write a function which will be able to randomly change letters in word except first and last one.
def fun(string)
z=0
s=string.size
tab=string
a=(1...s-1).to_a.sample s-1
for i in 1...(s-1)
puts tab[i].replace(string[a[z]])
z=z+1
end
puts tab
end
fun("sample")
My output is:
p
l
a
m
sample
Anybody know how to make it my tab be correct?
it seems to change in for block, because in output was 'plamp' so it's random as I wanted but if I want to print the whole word (splampe) it doesn't working. :(
What about:
def fun(string)
first, *middle, last = string.chars
[first, middle.shuffle, last].join
end
fun("sample") #=> "smalpe"
s = 'sample'
[s[0], s[1..-2].chars.shuffle, s[-1]].join
# => "slpmae"
Here is my solution:
def fun(string)
first = string[0]
last = string[-1]
middle = string[1..-2]
puts "#{first}#{middle.split('').shuffle.join}#{last}"
end
fun('sample')
there are some problems with your function. First, when you say tab=string, tab is now a reference to string, so, when you change characters on tab you change the string characters too. I think that for clarity is better to keep the index of sample (1....n)to reference the position in the original array.
I suggest the usage of tab as a new array.
def fun(string)
if string.length <= 2
return
z=1
s=string.size
tab = []
tab[0] = string[0]
a=(1...s-1).to_a.sample(s-1)
(1...s-1).to_a.each do |i|
tab[z] = string[a[i - 1]]
z=z+1
end
tab.push string[string.size-1]
tab.join('')
end
fun("sample")
=> "spalme"
Another way, using String#gsub with a block:
def inner_jumble(str)
str.sub(/(?<=\w)\w{2,}(?=\w)/) { |s| s.chars.shuffle.join }
end
inner_jumble("pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis") # *
#=> "poovcanaiimsllinoonroinuicclprsciscuoooomtces"
inner_jumble("what ho, fellow coders?")
#=> "waht ho, folelw coedrs?"
(?<=\w) is a ("zero-width") positive look-behind that requires the match to immediately follow a word character.
(?=\w) is a ("zero-width") positive look-ahead that requires the match to be followed immediately by a word character.
You could use \w\w+ in place of \w{2,} for matching two or more consecutive word characters.
If you only want it to apply to individual words, you can use gsub or sub.
*A lung disease caused by inhaling very fine ash and sand dust, supposedly the longest word in some English dictionaries.
How can I get the content in between "{ }" in Ruby? For example,
I love {you}
How can I fetch the element "you"? If I want to replace the content, say change "you" to "her", how should I do that? Probably using gsub?
replacements = {
'you' => 'her',
'angels' => 'demons',
'ice cream' => 'puppies',
}
my_string = "I love {you}.\nYour voice is like {angels} singing.\nI would love to eat {ice cream} with you sometime!"
replacements.each do |source, replacement|
my_string.gsub! "{#{source}}", replacement
end
puts my_string
# => I love her.
# => Your voice is like demons singing.
# => I would love to eat puppies with you sometime!
The simple way to get the content from the inside of the {...} is:
str = 'I love {you}'
str[/{(.+)}/, 1] # => "you"
That basically says, "grab everything inside a leading { to a trailing }. It's not real sophisticated and can be fooled by nested {} pairs.
Replacing the target string can be done various ways:
replace_str = 'her'
'I love {you}'.sub('you', replace_str) # => "I love {her}"
A simple sub will replace the first occurrence of the target string with the replacement text.
You could use a regex instead of the string:
'I love you {you}'.sub(/you/, replace_str) # => "I love her {you}"
If there are multiple occurrences of the target string then use a bit more text to locate it. This uses the wrapping delimiters to locate it, and then replaces them also. There are other ways to do this, but I'd do it like:
'I love you {you}'.sub(/{.+}/, "{#{ replace_str }}") # => "I love you {her}"
Alex Wayne's answer came close but didn't go all the way: Ruby's gsub has a really nice feature, where you can pass it a regex and a hash, and it will replace all the occurrences of the regex matches with the values in the hash:
hash = {
'I' => 'She',
'love' => 'loves',
'you' => 'me'
}
str.gsub(Regexp.union(hash.keys), hash) # => "She loves {me}"
That's really powerful when you want to take a template and quickly replace all the placeholders in it.
You can always use .index:
a = 'I love {bill gates}'
a[a.index('{')+1..a.index('}')-1]
The last line just says get 'a' from right after the first occurrence of '{' and right before the first occurrence of '}'. It is important to note, however, that this will only get the text between the first occurrences of {}. So it will work for your above example.
I would use indexing also to add something new between the {}s.
That would look something like:
a[0..a.index('{')] + 'Steve Jobs' + a[a.index('}')..-1]
Again this only works for the first occurrence of '{' and '}'.
Michael G.
why not use some template engine like: https://github.com/defunkt/mustache
note that ruby can do this for %{}:
"foo = %{foo}" % { :foo => 'bar' }
#=> "foo = bar"
and finally do not forget to check existing ruby template engines - do not reinvent the wheel!
Regular expressions are the way to go with gsub. Something like:
existingString.gsub(/\{(.*?)\}/) { "her" }
Currently i am splitting a string by pattern, like this:
outcome_array=the_text.split(pattern_to_split_by)
The problem is that the pattern itself that i split by, always gets omitted.
How do i get it to include the split pattern itself?
Thanks to Mark Wilkins for inpsiration, but here's a shorter bit of code for doing it:
irb(main):015:0> s = "split on the word on okay?"
=> "split on the word on okay?"
irb(main):016:0> b=[]; s.split(/(on)/).each_slice(2) { |s| b << s.join }; b
=> ["split on", " the word on", " okay?"]
or:
s.split(/(on)/).each_slice(2).map(&:join)
See below the fold for an explanation.
Here's how this works. First, we split on "on", but wrap it in parentheses to make it into a match group. When there's a match group in the regular expression passed to split, Ruby will include that group in the output:
s.split(/(on)/)
# => ["split", "on", "the word", "on", "okay?"
Now we want to join each instance of "on" with the preceding string. each_slice(2) helps by passing two elements at a time to its block. Let's just invoke each_slice(2) to see what results. Since each_slice, when invoked without a block, will return an enumerator, we'll apply to_a to the Enumerator so we can see what the Enumerator will enumerator over:
s.split(/(on)/).each_slice(2).to_a
# => [["split", "on"], ["the word", "on"], ["okay?"]]
We're getting close. Now all we have to do is join the words together. And that gets us to the full solution above. I'll unwrap it into individual lines to make it easier to follow:
b = []
s.split(/(on)/).each_slice(2) do |s|
b << s.join
end
b
# => ["split on", "the word on" "okay?"]
But there's a nifty way to eliminate the temporary b and shorten the code considerably:
s.split(/(on)/).each_slice(2).map do |a|
a.join
end
map passes each element of its input array to the block; the result of the block becomes the new element at that position in the output array. In MRI >= 1.8.7, you can shorten it even more, to the equivalent:
s.split(/(on)/).each_slice(2).map(&:join)
You could use a regular expression assertion to locate the split point without consuming any of the input. Below uses a positive look-behind assertion to split just after 'on':
s = "split on the word on okay?"
s.split(/(?<=on)/)
=> ["split on", " the word on", " okay?"]
Or a positive look-ahead to split just before 'on':
s = "split on the word on okay?"
s.split(/(?=on)/)
=> ["split ", "on the word ", "on okay?"]
With something like this, you might want to make sure 'on' was not part of a larger word (like 'assertion'), and also remove whitespace at the split:
"don't split on assertion".split(/(?<=\bon\b)\s*/)
=> ["don't split on", "assertion"]
If you use a pattern with groups, it will return the pattern in the results as well:
irb(main):007:0> "split it here and here okay".split(/ (here) /)
=> ["split it", "here", "and", "here", "okay"]
Edit The additional information indicated that the goal is to include the item on which it was split with one of the halves of the split items. I would think there is a simple way to do that, but I don't know it and haven't had time today to play with it. So in the absence of the clever solution, the following is one way to brute force it. Use the split method as described above to include the split items in the array. Then iterate through the array and combine every second entry (which by definition is the split value) with the previous entry.
s = "split on the word on and include on with previous"
a = s.split(/(on)/)
# iterate through and combine adjacent items together and store
# results in a second array
b = []
a.each_index{ |i|
b << a[i] if i.even?
b[b.length - 1] += a[i] if i.odd?
}
print b
Results in this:
["split on", " the word on", " and include on", " with previous"]