parsing text with ruby matching a string and returning a block on condition - repeat

Question

I have a text file that looks like this:

STUFF UP HERE

APEXED NUMBER : 123456789

1234567   Bob,Hope E.                   123.12              
1234567   TOM ROGERS JR III             123.18                
1234567   NICE, JOHNATH               4,450.00                 
1234567   PERDOND, DELLA              4,762.00               
1234567   ERICCY, PHIL                4,552.00               


  STUFF IN BETWEEN




APEXED NUMBER :

1234567   RICHARDSON,FELICIA D          632.00     
1234567   EARLEY, RICKY L               140.00     

STUFF ON THE BOTTOM

I want to read the file and find the words "APEXED NUMBER :" Then I want to determine if there are numbers after the colon. For example after the first APEXED NUMBER : the numbers 123456789 appear. I want to save this number. Then I want the file to skip a line and read the numbers and information after - assigning the information to different variables.

Then I want to continue through the file (line by line) until I find another "APEXED NUMBER" text and check if there are numbers after it - if there are not I want to assign these APEX NUMBER a value of "unknown" and move on.

Then take all the text found and store in an array separated by commas.

Here is my current attempt:

def is_numeric?(object)  #used to determine if a number is a number
true if Float(object) rescue false 
end

def is_apexed_line?(object)   # check if text has "APEXED NUMBER :"
true if object == "APEXED NUMBER :" rescue false
end

def load_file
 raw_records = []
 infile = File.open("test.txt", "r") 
 while line = infile.gets
 possible_apexed_line = line[2,15]

 if is_apexed_line?(possible_apexed_line)
 apexed_line = line[2,15]
 possible_apexed_number_present = line[18,9]

 if is_numeric?(possible_apexed_number_present)  
  abc_apexed_number = line[18,9]
  else abc_apexed_number = "unknown"
  end  # end of if


record = [apexed_line, abc_apexed_number]
raw_records << record

end  # end of if

end

puts raw_records.map {|record| record*','}


 infile.close

end

load_file

This produces:

APEXED NUMBER :, 123456789
APEXED NUMBER :, unknown

But this is as far as my learning thus far will take me. The result I am looking for is this:

1234567, BOB, HOPE E., 123.12, APEXED NUMBER :, 123456789
1234567, TOM ROGERS JR III, 123.18 , APEXED NUMBER :, 123456789              
1234567, NICE, JOHNATH,  4450.00  ,APEXED NUMBER :, 123456789               
1234567, PERDOND, DELLA, 4762.00 , APEXED NUMBER :, 123456789              
1234567, ERICCY, PHIL, 4552.00, APEXED NUMBER :, 123456789
1234567,   RICHARDSON,FELICIA D, 632.00 ,  APEXED NUMBER :, unknown  
1234567,   EARLEY, RICKY L, 140.00 , APEXED NUMBER :, unknown

Any suggestions/help to point me in the right direction will be appreciated. I am not wedded to this approach. If there are other ways to do it please suggest... I am learning ruby so I would prefer ruby suggestions.

Thanks

@paguardiario answer helps a lot. However, the STUFF IN BETWEEN has numbers too... These get detected in the regex solution. I do not know regex well. Does anyone also have a non-regex way of doing it? — akkdio
– akkdio, Commented May 12, 2012 at 23:31
you might need to add beginning/end markers: /^(\d+)\s{2,}(.*?)\s{2,}([\d,.]+)\s*$/ or fine tune the regex depending on the stuff between — pguardiario
– pguardiario, Commented May 13, 2012 at 0:28
@paguardiario - Thank you. I have ordered a regex book and will have to dig into it to see how to make it work better. — akkdio
– akkdio, Commented May 14, 2012 at 22:10

pguardiario · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-12 02:49:17Z

1

Here's mine:

File.open(filename).each_line do |line|
    @apexed_number = ('' == $1) ? 'unknown' : $1 if line =~ /APEXED NUMBER :\s*(\d*)/
    puts [$1,$2,$3,@apexed_number].join(', ') if line =~ /(\d+)\s{2,}(.*?)\s{2,}([\d,.]+)/
end

answered May 12, 2012 at 2:49

pguardiario

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2 Comments

akkdio Over a year ago

Thank you for your suggestion. I see you are using regex and and it seems much more concise then I have... Can you explain it a bit so I can get a grasp of what is going on?

pguardiario Over a year ago

Sure, the first matches a sequence of numbers after an optional space and the second one matches a sequence of numbers followed by 2 or more space chars, any non-greedy sequence of chars followed by 2 or more space chars and finally a sequence of numbers/commas/periods

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