Ruby String split with regex

Question

This is Ruby 1.8.7 but should be same as for 1.9.x

I am trying to split a string for example:

a = \"foo.bar.size.split(\'.\').last\"         


        

Answer 1

I think this would do it:

a.split(/\.(?=[\w])/)

I don't know how much you know about regex, but the (?=[\w]) is a lookahead that says "only match the dot if the next character is a letter kind of character". A lookahead won't actually grab the text it matches. It just "looks". So the result is exactly what you're looking for:

> a.split(/\.(?=[\w])/)
 => ["foo", "bar", "size", "split('.')", "last"]