On Mar 29, 9:35 ¨Βν¬ ΣτεφΘοχεμμ Όσθοχεμ®®®ΐωαθοο®γονχςοτεΊ
> On Mar 29, 7:41 ¨Βν¬ ΆΚεσσε Β®Όκεσσε®®®ΐαομ®γονΎ χςοτεΊ
>
> > How would I find the number of spaces at the beginning of a line before
> > the occurrance of the first non-space character?
>
> > Would the best method be to use a regular expression that covers all
> > non-space characters and get the index of the first occurrance of that?
>
> I think the following expresses what you are trying to do, but I do
> not know if this is the most efficient or idiomatic way to do it:
>
> def num_leading_spaces(s)
> prefix = (s =~ /(\s*)/)
> $1.length
> end
>
> puts num_leading_spaces(' hello')

Oops, still not sure whether this is ideal, but this is better than my
other version:

    def num_leading_spaces(s)
      s =~ /(\s*)/
      $1.length
    end