Extracting a part of a string in Ruby

Question

I know this is an easy question, but I want to extract one part of a string with rails. I would do this like Java, by knowing the beginning and end character of the string and extract it, but I want to do this by ruby way, that's why I need your help.

My string is:

<a href="javascript:launchRemote('99999','C')">STACK OVER AND FLOW             </a>

And I want the numerical values between quotation marks => 99999 and the value of the link => STACK OVER AND FLOW

How should I parse this string in ruby ?

Thanks.

ichigolas · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-28 23:13:27Z

3

If you need to parse html:

> require 'nokogiri'
> str = %q[<a href="javascript:launchRemote('99999','C')">STACK OVER AND FLOW</a>]
> doc = Nokogiri.parse(str)
> link = doc.at('a')
> link.text
=> "STACK OVER AND FLOW"
> link['href'][/(\d+)/, 1]
=> "99999"

http://nokogiri.org/

edited Jan 28, 2013 at 23:13

answered Jan 28, 2013 at 20:19

ichigolas

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4 Comments

the Tin Man Over a year ago

+1 for using Nokogiri, but, instead of doc.search('a').first use doc.at('a'). Instead of link.attribute('href').value use link['href']. Instead of href.scan(/'(\d+)'/).flatten use href[/(\d+)/, 1].

pguardiario Over a year ago

I agree with @the Tin Man, but just link['href'][/\d+/]

CanCeylan Over a year ago

thank you very much for your answer. To understand more, can you please explain how does [/(\d+)/, 1] work ?

ichigolas Over a year ago

/(\d+)/ is a regular expression which matchs any sequence of digits. Using [/(\d+)/] on link['href'](a string), returns the part of the string that matchs that regex.

Hauleth · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-28 19:53:28Z

1

This should work if you have only one link in string

str = %{<a href="javascript:launchRemote('99999','C')">STACK OVER AND FLOW             </a>}
num = str.match(/href=".*?'(\d*)'.*?/)[1].to_i
name = str.match(/>(.*?)</)[1].strip

edited Jan 28, 2013 at 19:53

answered Jan 28, 2013 at 19:42

Hauleth

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2 Comments

CanCeylan Over a year ago

num returns nil :/ and for the name, how should I exclude > and < chars as well ?

Hauleth Over a year ago

Previously it was fast written, but now it is tested and working.

valodzka · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-28 20:59:27Z

0

Way to get both at a time:

str = "<a href=\"javascript:launchRemote('99999','C')\">STACK OVER AND FLOW         </a>"
num, name = str.scan(/launchRemote\('(\d+)'[^>]+>\s*(.*?)\s*</).first
# => ["99999", "STACK OVER AND FLOW"]

answered Jan 28, 2013 at 20:59

valodzka

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