Ruby Regular expression to extract string between first ( and last )

Question

I have a string:

"whatever( here i com  ( asdfasDF ( ) ) ) go home"

I want to extract everything between the first "(" and last ")" which is:

" here i com  ( asdfasDF ( ) ) "

What is a good regular expression to extract that?

Update:

If my string contains newline chars the following works:

/\((([.|\s|\S])*)\)/

"Your string"? Whose string? Didn't you write "Lets say I have a string"? — sawa
– sawa, Commented Apr 28, 2013 at 14:38

Denis de Bernardy · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-28 13:27:02Z

4

A greedy expression with a capture, e.g.:

/\((.*)\)/

answered Apr 28, 2013 at 13:27

Denis de Bernardy

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1 Comment

Abid Over a year ago

this breaks when I have new line characters in my string

sawa · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-28 14:37:25Z

3

"whatever( here i com  ( asdfasDF ( ) ) ) go home"[/\((.*)\)/m, 1]

or

"whatever( here i com  ( asdfasDF ( ) ) ) go home"[/(?<=\().*(?=\))/m]

edited Apr 28, 2013 at 14:37

answered Apr 28, 2013 at 13:51

sawa

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Comments

Arup Rakshit · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-28 13:52:41Z

2

str = "whatever( here i com ( asdfasDF ( ) ) ) go home"
p str[str.index("(")+1..str.rindex(")")-1]

edited Apr 28, 2013 at 13:52

answered Apr 28, 2013 at 13:42

Arup Rakshit

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3 Comments

John Dvorak Over a year ago

could you do str[str.index("(")+1...str.rindex(")")-1]?

Arup Rakshit Over a year ago

@JanDvorak Excellent post tips :) done according to you... like it :)

John Dvorak Over a year ago

Actually, I mixed up ... (right-exclusive) and .. (inclusive). I meant the latter. I've just tested (I hoped you would)

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