CODEWITHSUNDEEP
lualua-patterns
Kujo Ludin
Kujo Ludin

Reputation: 35

Substituting whole words only using Regex in Lua

I'm making a program that will correctly address the gender of the user. So it should replace every instance of he to she or vice versa.

The problem is this will also replace he inside words such as them, their, help... This is where I'm stuck.

local str = "the he he's hell"

str = str:gsub("he", "she") --tried my best, not the correct solution!

print(str) --expecting "the she she's hell"

Basically replace all he to she.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 187

Answers (1)

Piglet
Piglet

Reputation: 28950

One possible solution that works both ways:

str = str:gsub("%a+", {he = "she", she = "he"})

%a+ matches one or more letter which is basically word. that match is replaced by the respective table entry or stays unchanged.

There are other ways to to this but this is probably the shortest way to achieve a two-wway solution.

Edit:

About the second param. I couldn't find any documentation about this. Do you have any?

Not sure where you've been looking for documentation but the Lua Manual says:

string.gsub (s, pattern, repl [, n])

...

If repl is a table, then the table is queried for every match, using the first capture as the key.

Upvotes: 2

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