Question

I am trying to extract the below pattern from a string using Ruby and I don’t seem to be getting too far on Ruby…

Here is the regex I am using \/p\/[\w-\/]*[\d+]

And here is the type of string I am trying to extract.

/p/hyphenated-words/more-hyphenated-words/102049294

So in short the string always starts with /p/ will end with multiple digits and contain one or more sub directories with possible hyphens.

My regex works on some online expression testers but not in Ruby.

Answer 1

In addition to @Mark Byers answer :

 /p/[\w-/]*[\d+]

The [\d+] part of your regex is irrelevant. The reason is that it is preceded by a greedy quantifier which quantifies a class which in turn contains \w. \w translates into [a-zA-Z0-9_] which will “eat” any digts that come after it.

Finally instead of [\d+] simply use \d (if you must).