MatchData providing unexpected result

rubyonrails-talk
1

Hi,

Below are two tests of using MatchData. The first is essentially Hal Futon's taken from The Ruby Way, 2nd. ed. [Thanks, Hal]. In particular, m[0] returns the string being searched.

The 2nd is my humble use. For mine, m[0] returns the search pattern, it seems,

I can't anything in the code to account for this difference. I'm expecting the first kind of response in a Rails app I'm working on, but I'm getting the second kind of response.

Any ideas?

Thanks in Advance, Richard

BTW, I running Ruby 1.8.6 over WindowsXP-Pro.SP3

========= Test ========= puts "\n1." pat = /(.+[aiu])(.+[aiu])(.+[aiu])(.+[aiu])/i str = "Fujiyama" m = pat.match(str) (0..5).to_a.each { |i| puts "m[%d]: %s" % [i, m[i].to_s] }

puts "\n2." pat = /noun/i str = "The 'noun' word is here" m = pat.match(str) (0..5).to_a.each { |i| puts "m[%d] %s" % [i, m[i].to_s] }

2

m[0] doesn't return the string being searched, it returns everything which the entire pattern matched.

In the first case /(.+[aiu])(.+[aiu])(.+[aiu])(.+[aiu])/i entirely matches "Fujiyama"

in the second case /noun/i only matches a portion of the string, so that's what is the value of m[0]

3

Hi Rick,

m[0] doesn't return the string being searched, it returns everything which the entire pattern matched.

I got it! In Hal's example, the matched string just happened to be the entire string. I didn't realize that distinction, but I'm on board now.

Thanks again for upteenth time for pulling my fat out of the fire.

Best wishes, Richard