Hi --

On Thu, 25 Aug 2005, Jeff Wood wrote:

> Regarding nil values for groups
>
> if you define your regular expressions like this :
>
> a = "My phone number is : 555-1212"
> b = /((\d{3})\-)?(\d{3})\-(\d{4})/
> c = b.match( a )
> puts c.to_a
>
> c should be [ "555-1212", nil, nil, "555", "1212" ]

Oh, well, yes -- if there's no match for the group.  I was taking you
very literally:

>>> Remember that if you define a group to be
>>> inside an optional region of the regular expression, that group will
>>> return nil.

You didn't include the "if there's no match" bit :-)


David

-- 
David A. Black
dblack / wobblini.net