Ruby String#scan equivalent to return MatchData

Question

As basically stated in the question title, is there a method on Ruby strings that is the equivalent to String#Scan but instead of returning just a list of each match, it would r

Answer 1

You could easily build your own by exploiting MatchData#end and the pos parameter of String#match. Something like this:

def matches(s, re)
  start_at = 0
  matches  = [ ]
  while(m = s.match(re, start_at))
    matches.push(m)
    start_at = m.end(0)
  end
  matches
end

And then:

>> matches("foo _bar_ _baz_ hashbang", /_[^_]+_/)
=> [#, #]
>> matches("_a_b_c_", /_[^_]+_/)
=> [#, #]
>> matches("_a_b_c_", /_([^_]+)_/)
=> [#, #]
>> matches("pancakes", /_[^_]+_/)
=> []

You could monkey patch that into String if you really wanted to.