Is there a way to backreference a previous string in parslet similarly to the \1 functionality in typical regular expressions ?
I want to extract the characters within a block such as:
Marker SomeName
some random text, numbers123
and symbols !#%
SomeName
in which "Marker" is a known string but "SomeName" is not known a-priori, so I believe I need something like:
rule(:name) { ( match('\w') >> match('\w\d') ).repeat(1) }
rule(:text_within_the_block) {
str('Marker') >> name >> any.repeat.as(:text_block) >> backreference_to_name
}
What I don't know is how to write the backreference_to_name rule using Parslet and/or Ruby language.
From http://kschiess.github.io/parslet/parser.html
Capturing input
Sometimes a parser needs to match against something that was already
matched against. Think about Ruby heredocs for example:
str = <-HERE
This is part of the heredoc.
HERE
The key to matching this kind of document is to capture part of the
input first and then construct the rest of the parser based on the
captured part. This is what it looks like in its simplest form:
match['ab'].capture(:capt) >> # create the capture
dynamic { |s,c| str(c.captures[:capt]) } # and match using the capture
The key here is that the dynamic block returns a lazy parser. It's only evaluated at the point it's being used and gets passed it's current context to reference at the point of execution.
-- Updated : To add a worked example --
So for your example:
require 'parslet'
require 'parslet/convenience'
class Mini < Parslet::Parser
rule(:name) { match("[a-zA-Z]") >> match('\\w').repeat }
rule(:text_within_the_block) {
str('Marker ') >>
name.capture(:namez).as(:name) >>
str(" ") >>
dynamic { |_,scope|
(str(scope.captures[:namez]).absent? >> any).repeat
}.as(:text_block) >>
dynamic { |src,scope| str(scope.captures[:namez]) }
}
root (:text_within_the_block)
end
puts Mini.new.parse_with_debug("Marker BOB some text BOB") .inspect
#=> {:name=>"BOB"#7, :text_block=>"some text "#11}
This required a couple of changes.
I changed rule(:name) to match a single word and added a str(" ") to detect that word had ended. (Note: \w is short for [A-Za-z0-9_] so it includes digits)
I changed the "any" match to be conditional on the text not being the :name text. (otherwise it consumes the 'BOB' and then fails to match, ie. it's greedy!)
I don't exactly want to support stackoverflow, but as you seem to be a parslet user, here goes: Try asking on the mailing list for a real nice answer. (http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.ruby.parslet)
What you call back-reference here is called a 'capture' in parslet. Please see the example 'capture.rb' in parslets source tree.
Related
I stumbled over this problem using the following simplified example:
line = searchstring.dup
line.gsub!(Regexp.escape(searchstring)) { '' }
My understanding was, that for every String stored in searchstring, the gsub! would cause that line is afterwards empty. Indeed, this is the case for many strings, but not for this case:
searchstring = "D "
line = searchstring.dup
line.gsub!(Regexp.escape(searchstring)) { '' }
p line
It turns out, that line is printed as "D " afterwards, i.e. no replacement had been performed.
This happens to any searchstring containing a space. Indeed, if I do a
p(Regexp.escape(searchstring))
for my example, I see "D\\ " being printed, while I would expect to get "D " instead. Is this a bug in the Ruby core library, or did I misuse the escape function?
Some background: In my concrete application, where this simplified example is derived from, I just want to do a literal string replacement inside a long string, in the following way:
REPLACEMENTS.each do
|from, to|
line.chomp!
line.gsub!(Regexp.escape(from)) { to }
end
. I'm using Regexp.escape just as a safety measure in the case that the string being replaced contains some regex metacharacter.
I'm using the Cygwin port of MRI Ruby 2.6.4.
line.gsub!(Regexp.escape(searchstring)) { '' }
My understanding was, that for every String stored in searchstring, the gsub! would cause that line is afterwards empty.
Your understanding is incorrect. The guarantee in the docs is
For any string, Regexp.new(Regexp.escape(str))=~str will be true.
This does hold for your example
Regexp.new(Regexp.escape("D "))=~"D " # => 0
therefore this is what your code should look like
line.gsub!(Regexp.new(Regexp.escape(searchstring))) { '' }
As for why this is the case, there used to be a bug where Regex.escape would incorrectly handle space characters:
# in Ruby 1.8.4
Regex.escape("D ") # => "D\\s"
My guess is they tried to keep the fix as simple as possible by replacing 's' with ' '. Technically this does add an unnecessary escape character but, again, that does not break the intended use of the method.
This happens to any searchstring containing a space. Indeed, if I do a
p(Regexp.escape(searchstring))
for my example, I see "D\\ " being printed, while I would expect to get "D " instead. Is this a bug in the Ruby core library, or did I misuse the escape function?
This looks to be a bug. In my opinion, whitespace is not a Regexp meta character, there is no need to escape it.
Some background: In my concrete application, where this simplified example is derived from, I just want to do a literal string replacement inside a long string […]
If you want to do literal string replacement, then don't use a Regexp. Just use a literal string:
line.gsub!(from, to)
I'm just starting with ruby and parslet, so this might be obvious to others (hopefully).
I'm wanting to get all the words up until a delimiter (^) without consuming it
The following rule works (but consumes the delimeter) with a result of {:wrd=>"otherthings"#0, :delim=>"^"#11}
require 'parslet'
class Mini < Parslet::Parser
rule(:word) { match('[a-zA-Z]').repeat}
rule(:delimeter) { str('^') }
rule(:othercontent) { word.as(:wrd) >> delimeter.as(:delim) }
root(:othercontent)
end
puts Mini.new.parse("otherthings^")
I was trying to use the 'present?',
require 'parslet'
class Mini < Parslet::Parser
rule(:word) { match('[a-zA-Z]').repeat}
rule(:delimeter) { str('^') }
rule(:othercontent) { word.as(:wrd) >> delimeter.present? }
root(:othercontent)
end
puts Mini.new.parse("otherthings^")
but this throws an exception:
Failed to match sequence (wrd:WORD &DELIMETER) at line 1 char 12. (Parslet::ParseFailed)
At a later stage I'll want to inspect the word to the right of the delimeter to build up a more complex grammar which is why I don't want to consume the delimeter.
I'm using parslet 1.5.0.
Thanks for your help!
TL;DR;
If you care what is before the "^" you should parse that first.
--- longer answer ---
A parser will always consume all the text. If it can't consume everything, then the document is not fully described by the grammar. Rather than thinking of it as something performing "splits" on your text... instead think of it as a clever state machine consuming a stream of text.
So... as your full grammar needs to consume all the document... when developing your parser, you can't make it to parse some part and leave the rest. You want it to transform your document into a tree so you can manipulate it into it's final from.
If you really wanted to just consume all text before a delimiter, then you could do something like this...
Say I was going to parse a '^' separated list of things.
I could have the following rules
rule(:thing) { (str("^").absent? >> any).repeat(1) } # anything that's not a ^
rule(:list) { thing >> ( str("^") >> thing).repeat(0) } #^ separated list of things
This would work as follows
parse("thing1^thing2") #=> "thing1^thing2"
parse("thing1") #=> "thing1"
parse("thing1^") #=> ERROR ... nothing after the ^ there should be a 'thing'
This would mean list would match a string that doesn't end or start with an '^'. To be useful however I need to pull out the bits that are the values with the "as" keyword
rule(:thing) { (str("^").absent? >> any).repeat(1).as(:thing) }
rule(:list) { thing >> ( str("^") >> thing).repeat(0) }
Now when list matches a string I get an array of hashes of "things".
parse("thing1^thing2") #=> [ {:thing=>"thing1"#0} , {:thing=>"thing2"#7} ]
In reality however you probably care what a 'thing' is... not just anything will go there.
In that case.. you should start by defining those rules... because you don't want to use the parser to split by "^" then re-parse the strings to work out what they are made of.
For example:
parse("6 + 4 ^ 2")
# => [ {:thing=>"6 + 4 "#0}, {:thing=>" 2"#7} ]
And I probably want to ignore the white_space around the "thing"s and I probably want to deal with the 6 the + and the 4 all separately. When I do that I am going to have to throw away my "all things that aren't '^'" rule.
I am currently writting a Ruby parser using Ruby, and more precisely Parslet, since I think it is far more easier to use than Treetop or Citrus. I create my rules using the official specifications, but there are some statements I can not write, since they "exclude" some syntax, and I do not know how to do that... Well, here is an example for you to understand...
Here is a basic rule :
foo::=
any-character+ BUT NOT (foo* escape_character barbar*)
# Knowing that (foo* escape_character barbar*) is included in any-character
How could I translate that using Parslet ? Maybe the absent?/present? stuff ?
Thank you very much, hope someone has an idea....
Have a nice day!
EDIT:
I tried what you said, so here's my translation into Ruby language using parslet:
rule(:line_comment){(source_character.repeat >> line_terminator >> source_character.repeat).absent? >> source_character.repeat(1)}
However, it does not seem to work (the sequence in parens). I did some tests, and came to the conclusion that what's written in my parens is wrong.
Here is a very easier example, let's consider these rules:
# Parslet rules
rule(:source_character) {any}
rule(:line_terminator){ str("\n") >> str("\r").maybe }
rule(:not){source_character.repeat >> line_terminator }
# Which looks like what I try to "detect" up there
I these these rules with this code:
# Code to test :
code = "test
"
But I get that:
Failed to match sequence (SOURCE_CHARACTER{0, } LINE_TERMINATOR) at
line 2 char 1. - Failed to match sequence (SOURCE_CHARACTER{0, }
LINE_TERMINATOR) at line 2 char 1.- Failed to match sequence (' '
' '?) at line 2 char 1.
`- Premature end of input at line 2 char 1. nil
If this sequence doesn't work, my 'complete' rule up there won't ever work... If anyone has an idea, it would be great.
Thank you !
You can do something like this:
rule(:word) { match['^")(\\s'].repeat(1) } # normal word
rule(:op) { str('AND') | str('OR') | str('NOT') }
rule(:keyword) { str('all:') | str('any:') }
rule(:searchterm) { keyword.absent? >> op.absent? >> word }
In this case, the absent? does a lookahead to make sure the next token is not a keyword; if not, then it checks to make sure it's not an operator; if not, finally see if it's a valid word.
An equivalent rule would be:
rule(:searchterm) { (keyword | op).absent? >> word }
Parslet matching is greedy by nature. This means that when you repeat something like
foo.repeat
parslet will match foo until it fails. If foo is
rule(:foo) { any }
you will be on the path to fail, since any.repeat always matches the entire rest of the document!
What you're looking for is something like the string matcher in examples/string_parser.rb (parslet source tree):
rule :string do
str('"') >>
(
(str('\\') >> any) |
(str('"').absent? >> any)
).repeat.as(:string) >>
str('"')
end
What this says is: 'match ", then match either a backslash followed by any character at all, or match any other character, as long as it is not the terminating ".'
So .absent? is really a way to exclude things from a match that follows:
str('foo').absent? >> (str('foo') | str('bar'))
will only match 'bar'. If you understand that, I assume you will be able to resolve your difficulties. Although those will not be the last on your way to a Ruby parser...
I have the following string:
nothing to match
<-
this rocks should match as should this still and this rocks and still
->
should not match still or rocks
<- no matches here ->
And i want to find all matches of 'rocks' and 'still', but only when they are within <- ->
The purpose is to markup glossary words but be able to only mark them up in areas of text that are defined by the editor.
I currently have:
<-.*?(rocks|still).*?->
This unfortunately only matches the first 'rocks' and ignores all subsequent instances and all the 'still's
I have this in a Rubular
The usage of this will be somthing like
Regexp.new( '<-.*?(' + self.all.map{ |gt| gt.name }.join("|") + ').*?->', Regexp::IGNORECASE, Regexp::MULTILINE )
Thanks in advance for any help
There may be a way to do this with a single regex, but it will probably be simpler to just do it in two steps. First match all of the markups, and then search the markups for the glossary words:
text = <<END
nothing to match
<-
this rocks should match as should this still and this rocks and still
->
should not match still or rocks
<- no matches here ->
END
text.scan(/<-.*?->/m).each do |match|
print match.scan(/rocks|still/), "\n"
end
Also, you should probably note that regex is only a good solution here if there is never any nested markup (<-...<-...->...->) and no escaped <- or -> whether it is inside or outside of a markup.
Don't forget your Ruby string methods. Use them first before considering regular expressions
$ ruby -0777 -ne '$_.split("->").each{|x| x.split("<-").each{|y| puts "#{y}" if (y[/rocks.*still/]) } }' file
In Ruby, it depends on what you want to do with the regexp. You're matching a regular expression against a string, so you'll be using String methods. Certain of these will have an effect on all matches (e.g. gsub or rpartition); others will have an effect on only the first match (e.g. rindex, =~).
If you're working with any of the latter (that return only the first match), you'll want to make use of a loop that calls the method again, starting from a certain offset. For example:
# A method to print the indices of all matches
def print_match_indices(string, regex)
i = string.rindex(regex, 0)
while !i.nil? do
puts i
i = string.rindex(regex, i+1)
end
end
(Yes, you can use split first, but I expect that a regex loop like the foregoing would require fewer system resources.)
Ruby 1.9.1, OSX 10.5.8
I'm trying to write a simple app that parses through of bunch of java based html template files to replace a period (.) with an underscore if it's contained within a specific tag. I use ruby all the time for these types of utility apps, and thought it would be no problem to whip up something using ruby's regex support. So, I create a Regexp.new... object, open a file, read it in line by line, then match each line against the pattern, if I get a match, I create a new string using replaceString = currentMatch.gsub(/./, '_'), then create another replacement as whole string by newReplaceRegex = Regexp.escape(currentMatch) and finally replace back into the current line with line.gsub(newReplaceRegex, replaceString) Code below, of course, but first...
The problem I'm having is that when accessing the indexes within the returned MatchData object, I'm getting the first result twice, and it's missing the second sub string it should otherwise be finding. More strange, is that when testing this same pattern and same test text using rubular.com, it works as expected. See results here
My pattern:
(<(?:WEBOBJECT|webobject) (?:NAME|name)=(?:[a-zA-Z0-9]+.)+(?:[a-zA-Z0-9]+)(?:>))
Text text:
<WEBOBJECT NAME=admin.normalMode.someOtherPatternWeDontWant.moreThatWeDontWant>moreNonMatchingText<WEBOBJECT NAME=admin.SecondLineMatch>AndEvenMoreNonMatchingText
Here's the relevant code:
tagRegex = Regexp.new('(<(?:WEBOBJECT|webobject) (?:NAME|name)=(?:[a-zA-Z0-9]+\.)+(?:[a-zA-Z0-9]+)(?:>))+')
testFile = File.open('RegexTestingCompFix.txt', "r+")
lineCount=0
testFile.each{|htmlLine|
lineCount += 1
puts ("Current line: #{htmlLine} at line num: #{lineCount}")
tagMatch = tagRegex.match(htmlLine)
if(tagMatch)
matchesArray = tagMatch.to_a
firstMatch = matchesArray[0]
secondMatch = matchesArray[1]
puts "First match: #{firstMatch} and second match #{secondMatch}"
tagMatch.captures.each {|lineMatchCapture|
puts "Current capture for tagMatches: #{lineMatchCapture} of total match count #{matchesArray.size}"
#create a new regex using the match results; make sure to use auto escape method
originalPatternString = Regexp.escape(lineMatchCapture)
replacementRegex = Regexp.new(originalPatternString)
#replace any periods with underscores in a copy of lineMatchCapture
periodToUnderscoreCorrection = lineMatchCapture.gsub(/\./, '_')
#replace original match with underscore replaced copy within line
htmlLine.gsub!(replacementRegex, periodToUnderscoreCorrection)
puts "The modified htmlLine is now: #{htmlLine}"
}
end
}
I would think that I should get the first tag in matchData[0] then the second tag in matchData1, or, what I'm really doing because I don't know how many matches I'll get within any given line is matchData.to_a.each. And in this case, matchData has two captures, but they're both the first tag match
which is: <WEBOBJECT NAME=admin.normalMode.someOtherPatternWeDontWant.moreThatWeDontWant>
So, what the heck am I doing wrong, why does rubular test give me the expected results?
You want to use the on String#scan instead of the Regexp#match:
tag_regex = /<(?:WEBOBJECT|webobject) (?:NAME|name)=(?:[a-zA-Z0-9]+\.)+(?:[a-zA-Z0-9]+)(?:>)/
lines = "<WEBOBJECT NAME=admin.normalMode.someOtherPatternWeDontWant.moreThatWeDontWant>moreNonMatchingText\
<WEBOBJECT NAME=admin.SecondLineMatch>AndEvenMoreNonMatchingText"
lines.scan(tag_regex)
# => ["<WEBOBJECT NAME=admin.normalMode.someOtherPatternWeDontWant.moreThatWeDontWant>", "<WEBOBJECT NAME=admin.SecondLineMatch>"]
A few recommendations for next ruby questions:
newlines and spaces are your friends, you don't loose points for using more lines on your code ;-)
use do-end on blocks instead of {}, improves readability a lot
declare variables in snake case (hello_world) instead of camel case (helloWorld)
Hope this helps
I ended up using the String.scan approach, the only tricky point there was figuring out that this returns an array of arrays, not a MatchData object, so there was some initial confusion on my part, mostly due to my ruby green-ness, but it's working as expected now. Also, I trimmed the regex per Trevoke's suggestion. But snake case? Never...;-) Anyway, here goes:
tagRegex = /(<(?:webobject) (?:name)=(?:\w+\.)+(?:\w+)(?:>))/i
testFile = File.open('RegexTestingCompFix.txt', "r+")
lineCount=0
testFile.each do |htmlLine|
lineCount += 1
puts ("Current line: #{htmlLine} at line num: #{lineCount}")
oldMatches = htmlLine.scan(tagRegex) #oldMatches thusly named due to not explicitly using Regexp or MatchData, as in "the old way..."
if(oldMatches.size > 0)
oldMatches.each_index do |index|
arrayMatch = oldMatches[index]
aMatch = arrayMatch[0]
#create a new regex using the match results; make sure to use auto escape method
replacementRegex = Regexp.new(Regexp.escape(aMatch))
#replace any periods with underscores in a copy of lineMatchCapture
periodToUnderscoreCorrection = aMatch.gsub(/\./, '_')
#replace original match with underscore replaced copy within line, matching against the new escaped literal regex
htmlLine.gsub!(replacementRegex, periodToUnderscoreCorrection)
puts "The modified htmlLine is now: #{htmlLine}"
end # I kind of still prefer the brackets...;-)
end
end
Now, why does MatchData work the way it does? It seems like it's behavior is a bug really, and certainly not very useful in general if you can't get it provide a simple means of accessing all the matches. Just my $.02
Small bits:
This regexp helps you get "normalMode" .. But not "secondLineMatch":
<webobject name=\w+\.((?:\w+)).+> (with option 'i', for "case insensitive")
This regexp helps you get "secondLineMatch" ... But not "normalMode":
<webobject name=\w+\.((?:\w+))> (with option 'i', for "case insensitive").
I'm not really good at regexpt but I'll keep toiling at it.. :)
And I don't know if this helps you at all, but here's a way to get both:
<webobject name=admin.(\w+) (with option 'i').