Use regex to get a substring within a larger string

Question

I'm using ruby to read a file and I need to somehow parse some data from each line and store it in an array. Two example 'lines' from the file are:

64.34.145.197 - - [03/Sep/2006:05:31:37 -0400] "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.0" 200 56
64.34.145.197 - - [03/Sep/2006:05:31:37 -0400] "GET /manual/mod/mod_autoindex.html HTTP/1.0" 200 39134

From this I need to get /robots.txt and /manual/mod/mod_autoindex.html. Using the following simple RegEx, I've been able to extract GET /robots.txt and GET /manual/mod/mod_autoindex.html but I can't seem to shake the GET.

arr.push(/GET \S+/.match(line))

I've tried some look ahead's but i'm pretty much a RegEx n00b. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Regexident · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-15 21:38:57Z

2

This should do:

arr.push(/(?<=GET )\S+/.match(line))

If the HTTP is guaranteed to follow the url you might also do this to further "frame" the match:

arr.push(/(?<=GET )\S+(?= HTTP)/.match(line))

(?<=...) and (?=...) are called positive lookarounds, btw.

answered Nov 15, 2011 at 21:38

Regexident

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CoryDorning Over a year ago

just refreshed the page to say that i found the answer...and this is what I found. Thanks!

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