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Ruby Regex

Regular expressions, commonly known as regex, are a powerful tool for searching and manipulating text strings in Ruby. Regex allows you to match patterns within a string, making it a valuable tool for tasks like data validation, string manipulation, and text processing. In this article, we'll take a look at how to use regex in Ruby and explore some common use cases.

Syntax

In Ruby, regular expressions are defined using the forward slash / character to delimit the pattern. For example:

pattern = /hello/

This defines a pattern that matches the string "hello".

Example

Let's take a look at a simple example of using regex in Ruby:

# Match a string that starts with "hello" and ends with "world"
pattern = /^hello.+world$/

# Test the pattern against a string
string = "hello my name is world"
match = string.match(pattern)

if match
  puts "Match found: #{match[0]}"
else
  puts "No match found"
end

Output

Match found: hello my name is world

Explanation

In this example, we define a regular expression pattern using the ^ and $ characters to indicate the start and end of the line, respectively. We use the .+ pattern in the middle to match any character one or more times. We then use the match method to test the pattern against a string. The match method returns a MatchData object that contains information about the match, including the matched string. We use an if-else block to check if a match was found and output a message accordingly.

Use

Regex is a powerful tool that can be used for a variety of tasks, including:

  • Data validation: check if a string matches a specific pattern, like an email address or phone number.
  • Text processing: search and replace text within a string.
  • String manipulation: extract specific parts of a string.

Important Points

  • In Ruby, regular expressions are defined using the forward slash / character to delimit the pattern.
  • The match method is used to test a pattern against a string and returns a MatchData object with information about the match.
  • Regular expressions are a powerful tool for tasks like data validation, text processing, and string manipulation.

Summary

Regex is a powerful tool for working with text in Ruby. It allows you to match patterns within a string and perform a variety of text-related tasks. By understanding the syntax and usage of regular expressions, you can take advantage of this powerful tool to make your Ruby code more flexible and efficient.

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