Extract string in a array of strings, split it and put into a new array in Ruby?

Question

Suppose I have a array of strings like this:

arr = ["\n<start>\n<exposition> <conflict> <escape> <conclusion>\t;\n", 
       "\n<exposition>\n<bad-guy> <insane-plan>\t;\n",
       "\n<conflict>\n<friendly-meeting> <female-interest> <danger>\t;\n"]

I want to extract every string in the array, split it using \n as the delimiter, then put it back to an array like this:

newArr = ["<start>",
          "<exposition> <conflict> <escape> <conclusion>",
          "<exposition>",
          "<bad-guy> <insane-plan>",
          "<conflict>",
          "<friendly-meeting> <female-interest> <danger>"]

I'm new to Ruby I tried to use for loop to iterate the array but it seems will eliminate all the Unix line ending then I have no delimiters to split the strings, and in the strings in arr they also have couple of extra characters \t; to remove.

one way, not very pretty. arr.map { |s| s.scan(/\n(\<.*?\>)\n/) + s.scan(/(\<.*\>)\t\;\n/) }.flatten — Sagar Pandya
– Sagar Pandya, Commented Oct 28, 2017 at 4:00
@sagarpandya82 kinda confusing whats inside the scan() ..... could you explain that to me? — Travis Su
– Travis Su, Commented Oct 28, 2017 at 4:03
Please wait for someone to answer (with explanation). The regex inside scan() is grabbing characters according to your specification. If you're unfamiliar with regex (sorry if you are) check out: regexone.com as a starter. — Sagar Pandya
– Sagar Pandya, Commented Oct 28, 2017 at 4:09
@sagarpandya82 your solution is pretty good why not answer it? — Travis Su
– Travis Su, Commented Oct 28, 2017 at 4:42
Please be more specific about the treatment of semicolons. For example, what should be the return value for the array ["<a;b>;<c>;\n<d>;\t<e>"]? — Cary Swoveland
– Cary Swoveland, Commented Oct 28, 2017 at 6:02

Cyzanfar · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-28 04:11:11Z

3

You can simply achieve this with some regex:

arr.join.split /[\n\t;]+/

Here I'm joining the array of strings into one string and splitting it according to multiple conditions (newline, tab, and semicolon).

answered Oct 28, 2017 at 4:11

Cyzanfar

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Travis Su Over a year ago

@Cyzenfar what if there is two ;\n in here? for example like "["\n<conflict>\n<friendly-meeting> <female-interest> <danger>;\n;\n"] , then the output should be ["<conflict>", "<friendly-meeting> <female-interest> <danger>", ""]

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