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rubyfieldcut

Ruby cutting fields and saving

I'm dealing with a file that has a bunch of entries like this

2012-07-15 10:16:27 C ?\path\to a filename\ called this file.doc

I want to take a line like this and cut the first 3 fields separated by spaces. So...

var1 = 2012-07-15
var2 = 10:16:27
var3 = c

I've googled around and I just can not seem to find the right method to use. Thank you for your help!

Solution

  • Ruby's String#split accepts a limit as its second parameter. This will do exactly what you're looking for:

    irb(main):005:0> str = "2012-07-15 10:16:27 C ?\path\to a filename\ called this file.doc"
=> "2012-07-15 10:16:27 C ?path\to a filename called this file.doc"
irb(main):006:0> str.split " ", 4                                                        
=> ["2012-07-15", "10:16:27", "C", "?path\to a filename called this file.doc"]

    You can use destructuring to assign these into local variables, if you want:

    one, two, three, rest = str.split " ", 4