How to match all occurrences of a regex

Is there a quick way to find every match of a regular expression in Ruby? I've looked through the Regex object in the Ruby STL and searched on Google to no avail.

Using scan should do the trick:

string.scan(/regex/)

To find all the matching strings, use String's scan method.

str = "A 54mpl3 string w1th 7 numb3rs scatter36 ar0und"
str.scan(/\d+/)
#=> ["54", "3", "1", "7", "3", "36", "0"]

If you want, MatchData, which is the type of the object returned by the Regexp match method, use:

str.to_enum(:scan, /\d+/).map { Regexp.last_match }
#=> [#<MatchData "54">, #<MatchData "3">, #<MatchData "1">, #<MatchData "7">, #<MatchData "3">, #<MatchData "36">, #<MatchData "0">]

The benefit of using MatchData is that you can use methods like offset:

match_datas = str.to_enum(:scan, /\d+/).map { Regexp.last_match }
match_datas[0].offset(0)
#=> [2, 4]
match_datas[1].offset(0)
#=> [7, 8]

See these questions if you'd like to know more:

• "https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6804557/how-do-i-get-the-match-data-for-all-occurrences-of-a-ruby-regular-expression-in?lq=1"
• "https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19596382/ruby-regular-expression-matching-enumerator-with-named-capture-support?lq=1"
• "https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17185943/how-to-find-out-the-starting-point-for-each-match-in-ruby?lq=1"

Reading about special variables $&, $', $1, $2 in Ruby will be helpful too.

if you have a regexp with groups:

str="A 54mpl3 string w1th 7 numbers scatter3r ar0und"
re=/(\d+)[m-t]/

you can use String's scan method to find matching groups:

str.scan re
#> [["54"], ["1"], ["3"]]

To find the matching pattern:

str.to_enum(:scan,re).map {$&}
#> ["54m", "1t", "3r"]

You can use string.scan(your_regex).flatten. If your regex contains groups, it will return in a single plain array.

string = "A 54mpl3 string w1th 7 numbers scatter3r ar0und"
your_regex = /(\d+)[m-t]/
string.scan(your_regex).flatten
=> ["54", "1", "3"]

Regex can be a named group as well.

string = 'group_photo.jpg'
regex = /\A(?<name>.*)\.(?<ext>.*)\z/
string.scan(regex).flatten

You can also use gsub, it's just one more way if you want MatchData.

str.gsub(/\d/).map{ Regexp.last_match }

If you have capture groups () inside the regex for other purposes, the proposed solutions with String#scan and String#match are problematic:

1. String#scan only get what is inside the capture groups;
2. String#match only get the first match, rejecting all the others;
3. String#matches (proposed function) get all the matches.

On this case, we need a solution to match the regex without considering the capture groups.

String#matches

With the Refinements you can monkey patch the String class, implement the String#matches and this method will be available inside the scope of the class that is using the refinement. It is an incredible way to Monkey Patch classes on Ruby.

Setup

• /lib/refinements/string_matches.rb

# This module add a String refinement to enable multiple String#match()s
# 1. `String#scan` only get what is inside the capture groups (inside the parens)
# 2. `String#match` only get the first match
# 3. `String#matches` (proposed function) get all the matches
module StringMatches
  refine String do
    def matches(regex)
      scan(/(?<matching>#{regex})/).flatten
    end
  end
end

Used: named capture groups

Usage

• rails c

> require 'refinements/string_matches'

> using StringMatches

> 'function(1, 2, 3) + function(4, 5, 6)'.matches(/function\((\d), (\d), (\d)\)/)
=> ["function(1, 2, 3)", "function(4, 5, 6)"]

> 'function(1, 2, 3) + function(4, 5, 6)'.scan(/function\((\d), (\d), (\d)\)/)
=> [["1", "2", "3"], ["4", "5", "6"]]

> 'function(1, 2, 3) + function(4, 5, 6)'.match(/function\((\d), (\d), (\d)\)/)[0]
=> "function(1, 2, 3)"