CODEWITHSUNDEEP
lua
user2463506
user2463506

Reputation: 129

Lua pattern text split

Again I need help with Lua patterns. Lets say i have following strings:

<c> block - should match c and block

<category>material - should match category and material

decorative - if there is no <> block then it should return what it was given (or nil).

I'm not interested in spaces, so built in trim would be nice.

I managed to create (<%a>)([^>]+), but it returns <c> and block in first example, whish sadly is not what i'm after.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 219

Answers (1)

Wiktor Stribiżew
Wiktor Stribiżew

Reputation: 626896

The (<%a>) part in your pattern captures the angle brackets thus they land in the captured value. The %a matches only one alpha char, so you need to add + quantifier after it to match 1 or more alpha chars.

Use

<(%a+)>%s*([^>]+)

The %s* will match 0+ whitespace chars and they will be outside Group 2.

A Lua demo:

local function splitString(text)
    return string.match(text, "<(%a+)>%s*([^>]+)")
end

print(splitString("<c> block"))           -- c  block
print(splitString("<category>material"))  -- category   material
print(splitString("decorative"))          -- nil

Upvotes: 5

Related Questions