how to parse text form input in ruby on rails

Question

I'm a newbie ruby on rails programmer, so forgive me if this is a stupid question... I'm wondering how to parse text after an html form submission. In short, I'm building a twitter rip-off as a personal project. I have an object called 'micropost' (basically a tweet) from which I want to extract hash tags. I have the following regular expression to do the parsing into an array:

micropost.text.gsub(/ (#\w+)/) { |a| 
  ((a.include?('#'))) << a.strip.gsub(/#/, '') 
}

however, I'm not quite sure where to place it? Should I put it in the data Model of micropost? In a micropost Helper? In the micropost Controller? Or in the html.erb View for the form.

Thanks so much for any help anyone can offer!

I tried to format your code, but couldn't tell if it was entered correctly in the first place due to smart-quotes and what seems like a surplus of parens. Please double-check, and cut-and-paste only pure text. — Dave Newton
– Dave Newton, Commented Jan 31, 2012 at 2:23
Thanks for the heads up on the extra parenthesis. Sorry about that. — J K
– J K, Commented Jan 31, 2012 at 20:26

Ashitaka · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-31 20:51:43Z

2

I'd create a function and put it in a helper since it seems you'll be using it in your views and in your controllers. If you decide to pursue this route and if you want to create a helper for a specific controller and view (microposts_helper, for example) that is not loaded by other controllers and views, you may want to add this line:

config.action_controller.include_all_helpers = false

to your application.rb file located in the config folder.

And finally, since you're a newbie ruby on rails programmer already dealing with regular expressions, I recommend you this site. It's been invaluable to me, as a newbie ruby on rails programmer myself.

Ok, so in your microposts_helper, create something like:

module MicropostsHelper  
  def hash_tags(string)
    string.gsub(/ (#\w+)/) { |a| 
      ((a.include?('#'))) << a.strip.gsub(/#/, '') 
    }
  end
end

And then you can call it in your microposts views and controller with hash_tags(micropost.text)

edited Jan 31, 2012 at 20:51

answered Jan 31, 2012 at 3:14

Ashitaka

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2 Comments

J K Over a year ago

Sorry... you mean create a method in the helper that has this regExp as a function, right?

J K Over a year ago

That's what I thought you meant, just had to double check :P Thanks!

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