Is there a way to check in Ruby whether the string "1:/2" is contained within a larger string str, beside iterating over all positions of str?
You can use the include? method
str = "wdadwada1:/2wwedaw"
# => "wdadwada1:/2wwedaw"
str.include? "1:/2"
# => true
A regular expression will do that.
s =~ /1:\/2/
This will return either nil if s does not contain the string, or the integer position if it does. Since nil is falsy and an integer is truthy, you can use this expression in an if statement:
if s =~ /1:\/2/
...
end
The regular expression is normally delimited by /, which is why the slash within the regular expression is escaped as \/
It is possible to use a different delimiter to avoid having to escape the /:
s =~ %r"1:/2"
You could use other characters than " with this syntax, if you want.
The simplest and most straight-forward is to simply ask the string if it contains the sub-string:
"...the string 1:/2 is contained..."['1:/2']
# => "1:/2"
!!"...the string 1:/2 is contained..."['1:/2']
# => true
The documentation has the full scoop; Look at the last two examples.
Related
I am trying to use gsub or sub on a regex passed through terminal to ARGV[].
Query in terminal: $ruby script.rb input.json "\[\{\"src\"\:\"
Input file first 2 lines:
[{
"src":"http://something.com",
"label":"FOO.jpg","name":"FOO",
"srcName":"FOO.jpg"
}]
[{
"src":"http://something123.com",
"label":"FOO123.jpg",
"name":"FOO123",
"srcName":"FOO123.jpg"
}]
script.rb:
dir = File.dirname(ARGV[0])
output = File.new(dir + "/output_" + Time.now.strftime("%H_%M_%S") + ".json", "w")
open(ARGV[0]).each do |x|
x = x.sub(ARGV[1]),'')
output.puts(x) if !x.nil?
end
output.close
This is very basic stuff really, but I am not quite sure on how to do this. I tried:
Regexp.escape with this pattern: [{"src":".
Escaping the characters and not escaping.
Wrapping the pattern between quotes and not wrapping.
Meditate on this:
I wrote a little script containing:
puts ARGV[0].class
puts ARGV[1].class
and saved it to disk, then ran it using:
ruby ~/Desktop/tests/test.rb foo /abc/
which returned:
String
String
The documentation says:
The pattern is typically a Regexp; if given as a String, any regular expression metacharacters it contains will be interpreted literally, e.g. '\d' will match a backlash followed by ‘d’, instead of a digit.
That means that the regular expression, though it appears to be a regex, it isn't, it's a string because ARGV only can return strings because the command-line can only contain strings.
When we pass a string into sub, Ruby recognizes it's not a regular expression, so it treats it as a literal string. Here's the difference in action:
'foo'.sub('/o/', '') # => "foo"
'foo'.sub(/o/, '') # => "fo"
The first can't find "/o/" in "foo" so nothing changes. It can find /o/ though and returns the result after replacing the two "o".
Another way of looking at it is:
'foo'.match('/o/') # => nil
'foo'.match(/o/) # => #<MatchData "o">
where match finds nothing for the string but can find a hit for /o/.
And all that leads to what's happening in your code. Because sub is being passed a string, it's trying to do a literal match for the regex, and won't be able to find it. You need to change the code to:
sub(Regexp.new(ARGV[1]), '')
but that's not all that has to change. Regexp.new(...) will convert what's passed in into a regular expression, but if you're passing in '/o/' the resulting regular expression will be:
Regexp.new('/o/') # => /\/o\//
which is probably not what you want:
'foo'.match(/\/o\//) # => nil
Instead you want:
Regexp.new('o') # => /o/
'foo'.match(/o/) # => #<MatchData "o">
So, besides changing your code, you'll need to make sure that what you pass in is a valid expression, minus any leading and trailing /.
Based on this answer in the thread Convert a string to regular expression ruby, you should use
x = x.sub(/#{ARGV[1]}/,'')
I tested it with this file (test.rb):
puts "You should not see any number [0123456789].".gsub(/#{ARGV[0]}/,'')
I called the file like so:
ruby test.rb "\d+"
# => You should not see any number [].
In Ruby (PCRE), is it possible to use a backreference to a captured decimal value to define a repetition length?
/^(\d+),.{\1}/.match('4,abcdefgh') # Should match '4,abcd'
The above code just returns nil (finds no matches).
You can use String#to_i, which gives you the number at the start:
str = '4,abcdefgh'
str.match(/^(\d+),.{#{str.to_i}}/) # => #<MatchData "4,abcd" 1:"4">
No, you can't do that with regular expressions. If the range of decimal values however is limited, you could build a regular expression containing all possible combinations, something like:
'1abcde2abcde3abcde4abcde'.scan(/1.{1}|2.{2}|3.{3}|4.{4}/)
#=> ["1a", "2ab", "3abc", "4abcd"]
You could use two regular expressions:
str = '4,abcdefgh'
str =~ /\A(\d+,)/
str[0,$1.size+$1.to_i]
#=> "4,abcd"
I see in the documentation I'm able to do:
/\$(?<dollars>\d+)\.(?<cents>\d+)/ =~ "$3.67" #=> 0
puts dollars #=> prints 3
I was wondering if this would be possible:
string = "\$(\?<dlr>\d+)\.(\?<cts>\d+)"
/#{Regexp.escape(string)}/ =~ "$3.67"
I get:
`<main>': undefined local variable or method `dlr' for main:Object (NameError)
There are a few mistakes in your approach. First of all, let's look at your string:
string = "\$(\?<dlr>\d+)\.(\?<cts>\d+)"
You escape the dollar sign with "\$", but that is the same as just writing "$", consider:
"\$" == "$"
#=> true
To actually end up with the string "backslash followed by dollar" you would need to write "\\$". The same thing applies to the decimal character classes, you would have to write "\\d" to end up with the correct string.
The question marks on the other hand are actually part of the regex syntax, so you do not want to escape these at all. I recommend using single quotes for your original string, because that makes the input much easier:
string = '\$(?<dlr>\d+)\.(?<cts>\d+)'
#=> "\\$(?<dlr>\\d+)\\.(?<cts>\\d+)"
The next issue is with Regexp.escape. Take a look at what regular expression it produces with the above string:
string = '\$(?<dlr>\d+)\.(?<cts>\d+)'
Regexp.escape(string)
#=> "\\\\\\$\\(\\?<dlr>\\\\d\\+\\)\\\\\\.\\(\\?<cts>\\\\d\\+\\)"
That's one level too much escaping. Regexp.escape can be used when you want to match the literal characters that are contained in the string. For example, the escaped regex above will match the source string itself:
/#{Regexp.escape(string)}/ =~ string
#=> 0 # matches at offset 0
Instead, you can use Regexp.new to treat the source as an actual regular expression.
The last issue is then how you access the match result. Obviously, you are getting a NoMethodError. You might think that the match result is stored in local variables called dlr and cts, but that is not the case. You have two options to access the match data:
Use Regexp.match, it will return a MatchData object as result
Use regexp =~ string and then access the last match data with the global variable $~
I prefer the former, because it is easier to read. The full code would then look like this:
string = '\$(?<dlr>\d+)\.(?<cts>\d+)'
regexp = Regexp.new(string)
result = regexp.match("$3.67")
#=> #<MatchData "$3.67" dlr:"3" cts:"67">
result[:dlr]
#=> "3"
result[:cts]
#=> "67"
If I wanted to remove things like:
.!,'"^-# from an array of strings, how would I go about this while retaining all alphabetical and numeric characters.
Allowed alphabetical characters should also include letters with diacritical marks including à or ç.
You should use a regex with the correct character property. In this case, you can invert the Alnum class (Alphabetic and numeric character):
"◊¡ Marc-André !◊".gsub(/\p{^Alnum}/, '') # => "MarcAndré"
For more complex cases, say you wanted also punctuation, you can also build a set of acceptable characters like:
"◊¡ Marc-André !◊".gsub(/[^\p{Alnum}\p{Punct}]/, '') # => "¡MarcAndré!"
For all character properties, you can refer to the doc.
string.gsub(/[^[:alnum:]]/, "")
The following will work for an array:
z = ['asfdå', 'b12398!', 'c98347']
z.each { |s| s.gsub! /[^[:alnum:]]/, '' }
puts z.inspect
I borrowed Jeremy's suggested regex.
You might consider a regular expression.
http://www.regular-expressions.info/ruby.html
I'm assuming that you're using ruby since you tagged that in your post. You could go through the array, put it through a test using a regexp, and if it passes remove/keep it based on the regexp you use.
A regexp you might use might go something like this:
[^.!,^-#]
That will tell you if its not one of the characters inside the brackets. However, I suggest that you look up regular expressions, you might find a better solution once you know their syntax and usage.
If you truly have an array (as you state) and it is an array of strings (I'm guessing), e.g.
foo = [ "hello", "42 cats!", "yöwza" ]
then I can imagine that you either want to update each string in the array with a new value, or that you want a modified array that only contains certain strings.
If the former (you want to 'clean' every string the array) you could do one of the following:
foo.each{ |s| s.gsub! /\p{^Alnum}/, '' } # Change every string in place…
bar = foo.map{ |s| s.gsub /\p{^Alnum}/, '' } # …or make an array of new strings
#=> [ "hello", "42cats", "yöwza" ]
If the latter (you want to select a subset of the strings where each matches your criteria of holding only alphanumerics) you could use one of these:
# Select only those strings that contain ONLY alphanumerics
bar = foo.select{ |s| s =~ /\A\p{Alnum}+\z/ }
#=> [ "hello", "yöwza" ]
# Shorthand method for the same thing
bar = foo.grep /\A\p{Alnum}+\z/
#=> [ "hello", "yöwza" ]
In Ruby, regular expressions of the form /\A………\z/ require the entire string to match, as \A anchors the regular expression to the start of the string and \z anchors to the end.
I saw this on a screencast and couldn't figure out what it was. Reference sheets just pile it in with other operators as a general pattern match operator.
It matches string to a regular expression.
'hello' =~ /^h/ # => 0
If there is no match, it will return nil. If you pass it invalid arguments (ie, left or right-hand sides are not correct), it will either throw a TypeError or return false.
From ruby-doc :
str =~ obj => fixnum or nil
Match—If obj is a Regexp, use it as a pattern to match against str, and returns the offset position the match starts, or nil if there is no match. Otherwise, invokes obj.=~, passing str as an argument. The default =~ in Object returns false.
"cat o' 9 tails" =~ /\d/ #=> 7
"cat o' 9 tails" =~ 9 #=> false
Well, the reference is correct, it is the "matches this regex" operator.
if var =~ /myregex/ then something end
As the other answers already stated, =~ is the regular expression vs string match operator.
Note: The =~ operator is not commutative
Please consider the note below from the ruby doc site, as I have seen yet only the first form
str =~ regexp
used in the other answers:
Note: str =~ regexp is not the same as regexp =~ str. Strings captured
from named capture groups are assigned to local variables only in the
second case.
Here is the documentation for the second form: link
Regular expression string matching. Here's a detailed list of operators: http://phrogz.net/programmingruby/tut_expressions.html#table_7.1
Regular expression string matching:
puts true if url =~ /google.com/
You can read '=~' as 'is matching'.
I believe this is a pattern matching operator used with regex.