reg_assoc - A regular pattern substring extractor array reg_assoc(string str, string array pat_arr, array tok_arr); array reg_assoc(string str, string array pat_arr, array tok_arr, mixed def); reg_assoc() takes a string and explodes it into substrings matching the regular expression pattern strings given in pat_arr and associates them with tokens given in tok_arr. If def (default 0) is given, it is associated with a non-match. The return value is an array of two arrays, the 1st being an array of the form <pre> ({ non-match1, match1, non-match2, match2, ..., non-match n, match n, non-match n+1 }) </pre> and the 2nd holds the tokens corresponding to the matches in order: <pre> ({ def, token corresponding to match1, ...., def, token corresponding to match n, def }). </pre> pat_arr and tok_arr must be of the same sizes, the ith element in tok_arr being the corresponding token to the ith element of pat_arr. pat_arr can only hold strings. If pat_arr (and hence tok_arr) has size 0 then the return value is simply ({ ({ str }), ({ def }) }). EXAMPLE <pre> #define STRING_PAT "\e"(\e\e\e\e.|[^\e\e\e"])*\e"" #define NUM_PAT "[0\-9]+" #define F_STRING 1 #define F_NUM 2 reg_assoc("Blah \e"blah\e" test 203 hhh j 308 \e"bacdcd\eb\e"acb", ({ STRING_PAT, NUM_PAT }), ({ F_STRING, F_NUM }), "no-match") </pre> will return <pre> ({ ({ "Blah ", "\e"blah\e"", " test ", "203", " hhh j ", "308", " ", "\e"bacdcd\eb\e"", "acb" }), ({ "no-match", F_STRING, "no-match", F_NUM, "no-match", F_NUM, "no-match", F_STRING, "no-match" }) }) </pre> See also: regexp [for regular expression syntax] Tim Hollebeek Beek@ZorkMUD, Lima Bean, IdeaExchange, and elsewhere