Extracting Ruby string within a pattern within a scan or regex pattern

Question

I'm using Ruby 2.0. I've currently got a string of:

str = "bar [baz] foo [with] another [one]"

str.scan(/\[.*\]/)

The output is:

["[baz] foo [with] another [one]"]

When I would expect it more like:

["[baz]","[with]","[one]"]

So I basically need to put everything between "[]" into an array. Can someone please show me what I'm missing out?

Brian Stephens · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-01 12:53:46Z

4

Your .* is greedy, so it doesn't stop until the final bracket.

You need to use a lazy quantifier .*? or only catch non-brackets: [^\]]*

answered Aug 1, 2013 at 12:53

Brian Stephens

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Comments

Dave Sexton · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-01 12:56:20Z

3

Regexs are greedy by default so your regex grabbing everything from the first [ to the last ]. Make it non-greedy like so:

str.scan(/\[.*?\]/)

answered Aug 1, 2013 at 12:56

Dave Sexton

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This one worked perfectly thanks - same conclusion as Brian's answer