Return first match of Ruby regex

Question

I'm looking for a way to perform a regex match on a string in Ruby and have it short-circuit on the first match.

The string I'm processing is long and from what it looks like the standard way (match method) would process the whole thing, collect each match, and return a MatchData object containing all matches.

match = string.match(/regex/)[0].to_s 

Answer 1

You could try String#[] (as in variableName[/regular expression/]).

This is an example output from IRB:

names = "erik kalle johan anders erik kalle johan anders" # => "erik kalle johan anders erik kalle johan anders" names[/kalle/] # => "kalle" 

Answer 2

You can use []: (which is like match)

"[email protected]"[/\+([^@]+)/, 1] # matches capture group 1, i.e. what is inside () # => "account2" "[email protected]"[/\+([^@]+)/]    # matches capture group 0, i.e. the whole match # => "+account2"