Regex with named capture groups getting all matches in Ruby

Question

I have a string:

s=\"123--abc,123--abc,123--abc\"

I tried using Ruby 1.9\'s new feature \"named groups\" to fetch all named group info:

Answer 1

I like the match_all given by John, but I think it has an error.

The line:

  match_datas << md

works if there are no captures () in the regex.

This code gives the whole line up to and including the pattern matched/captured by the regex. (The [0] part of MatchData) If the regex has capture (), then this result is probably not what the user (me) wants in the eventual output.

I think in the case where there are captures () in regex, the correct code should be:

  match_datas << md[1]

The eventual output of match_datas will be an array of pattern capture matches starting from match_datas[0]. This is not quite what may be expected if a normal MatchData is wanted which includes a match_datas[0] value which is the whole matched substring followed by match_datas[1], match_datas[[2],.. which are the captures (if any) in the regex pattern.

Things are complex - which may be why match_all was not included in native MatchData.