Split string by multiple delimiters

Question

I want to split a string by whitespaces, , and ' using a single ruby command.

1. word.split will split by white spaces;

2. word.split(",") will split by ,;

3. word.split("\'") will split by '.

How to do all three at once?

Answer 1

word = "Now is the,time for'all good people"
word.split(/[\s,']/)
 => ["Now", "is", "the", "time", "for", "all", "good", "people"] 

Answer 2

Regex.

"a,b'c d".split /\s|'|,/
# => ["a", "b", "c", "d"]

Answer 3

You can use a combination of the split method and the Regexp.union method like so:

delimiters = [',', ' ', "'"]
word.split(Regexp.union(delimiters))
# => ["Now", "is", "the", "time", "for", "all", "good", "people"]

You can even use regex patters in the delimiters.

delimiters = [',', /\s/, "'"]
word.split(Regexp.union(delimiters))
# => ["Now", "is", "the", "time", "for", "all", "good", "people"]

This solution has the advantage of allowing totally dynamic delimiters or any length.

Answer 4

Here is another one :

word = "Now is the,time for'all good people"
word.scan(/\w+/)
# => ["Now", "is", "the", "time", "for", "all", "good", "people"]