On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 9:14 AM, Robert Klemme <shortcutter / googlemail.com> wrote: > On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 2:58 AM, 7stud -- <bbxx789_05ss / yahoo.com> wrote: >> perl's regexes have a recursive feature, which can solve your problem. >> Want to call an external script? > > Not necessary: Ruby has it, too. > > irb(main):001:0> s="x(a(b)()c)y" > => "x(a(b)()c)y" > irb(main):002:0> %r{(?<ne> \( (?:\g<ne>|[^()]+)* \) )}x.match s > => #<MatchData "(a(b)()c)" ne:"(a(b)()c)"> > > irb(main):003:0> s = "f_(a)(x)=x^(2)+(5x//f'(x))" > => "f_(a)(x)=x^(2)+(5x//f'(x))" > irb(main):004:0> s.scan %r{(?<ne> \( (?: \g<ne> | [^()] )* \) )}x > => [["(a)"], ["(x)"], ["(2)"], ["(5x//f'(x))"]] > > See http://www.geocities.jp/kosako3/oniguruma/doc/RE.txt PS: Here's a more targeted one irb(main):054:0> %r{\( (?<ne> [^()] | \( \g<ne> \) )* // \g<ne>* \)}x.match s => #<MatchData "(5x//f'(x))" ne:"(x)"> :-) Cheers robert -- remember.guy do |as, often| as.you_can - without end http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/