Python to ruby regex search conversion

Question

I have a simple python regex re.search('<span[\w\W]*?>Members[\w\W]*?([\w\W]*?)</span>', str). I'd like to do the same in ruby.

From the docs, it appears that match should work. However when I try

/<span[\w\W]*?>Members[\w\W]*?([\w\W]*?)</span>/.match(str) I get a syntax error.

I know this is something obvious but would love some help. Thank you

Pavneet_Singh · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-20 00:33:44Z

2

You need to escape the / which is inside closing tag of </span>

/<span[\w\W]*?>Members[\w\W]*?([\w\W]*?)<\/span>/.match(str)
//                                       ^^

otherwise this will be considered as end of regex

and you can use .*? where . mean capture anything except line break

/<span.*?>Members.*?(.*?)<\/span>/.match(str)

answered Sep 20, 2018 at 0:20

Pavneet_Singh

37.5k5 gold badges57 silver badges71 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

3 Comments

thanks. that works! is there a ruby equivalent of search? Don't see one for ruby and match doesn't work the same

you can use scan, and glad that I could help!

and you can use .*? instead of [\w\W]*? . mean capture anything

iBug · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-20 00:42:02Z

1

If you have a lot of slashes to match, try %r notation:

%r{<span[\w\W]*?>Members[\w\W]*?([\w\W]*?)</span>}.match(str)

answered Sep 20, 2018 at 0:42

iBug

37.6k8 gold badges101 silver badges155 bronze badges