Search code examples
stringlualua-patterns

Splitting a string with a double delimiter

I'm trying to understand how to split a string in lua with this format

hello - mynameis - jeff

I simply want to get the name "jeff". The delimiter will be an - and a . This is what I actually tried:

local result = string.gmatch(line, "[-\s]+")

Which doesn't work. How would I do it?

Solution

  • One of a workarounds can be replacing all " - " with a character that is not used in the content you have, and then get the last part with a simple negated character class with a $ end-of-string anchor:

    local example = "hello - mynameis - jeff"
example = string.gsub(example, " %- ", "\x02")
local result = string.match(example, "[^\x02]+$")
print(result)

    See the Lua IDEONE demo

    With " %- ", all space + - + space substrings are replace with the temporary character, and then only the substring after the last temporary character is matched with [^\x02]+$ pattern.

    I used the STX control character (\x02), but you may choose another that you are sure will be missing in the contents to parse.