How can we write a pattern that will find all instances of class or
klass, but not class_name in the following passage?
The word class is a reserved word, but we can use other words that contain it, like "class_name", or "klass" to work around this.
We can use the regex anchor \b which represents word boundaries.
string = <<-STRING
The word class is a reserved word,
but we can use other words that
contain it, like "class_name", or
"klass" to work around this.
STRING
pattern = /\b[ck]lass\b/
string.scan(pattern)
#=> ["class", "klass"]
From the guide to word boundaries on regular-expressions.info (an excellent reference):
There are three different positions that qualify as word boundaries:
- Before the first character in the string, if the first character is a word character.
- After the last character in the string, if the last character is a word character.
- Between two characters in the string, where one is a word character and the other is not a word character.
Check out the regex docs section on anchors for Ruby specific detail.
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