Question

I am using Rails 3.1.1 and I would like to recognize (maybe using a regex) if a string “contains”/”is”/”represents” one of the following:

• an email address
• a Web site URL
• a number

I am trying to implement a method that, given a string, returns:

• email if the string is something like my_nick@email_provider.org
• website if the string is something like www.web_address.org
• number if the string is something like 123
• null otherwise

Is it possible? How can I make that?

Answer 1

Here’s some code for you:

def whatami(input)
  return :email   if input =~ EmailRegex 
  return :website if input =~ WebsiteRegex
  return :number  if input =~ NumberRegex
  nil
end

You can look up individual regexes for each case above — or perhaps you can find non-regex solutions for some cases.