Bill McCarthy wrote:
Hello Vim List,
Example 1:
:echo "<" . matchstr(" 1.2345 ","[0-9.]") . ">"<CR>
<1>
Example 2:
:echo "<" . matchstr(" 1.2345 ","[0-9.]*") . ">"<CR>
<>
Why isn't the second exampe returning <1.2345>?
Is there a better way of stripping spaces off a string?
What you get is the first (leftmost) substring matching the pattern.
In the first case the pattern matches exactly one dot or digit, and it
matches the 1 at position 2.
In the second case the pattern matches zero or more dots and digits, and
it matches the null string at position 0.
If you had specified \+ as multi instead of * you would (IIUC) have got
what you wanted.
See ":help /multi"
To "strip spaces off a string" I would have used substitute(string, " ",
"", g)
What you are trying to do here is not "strip spaces off a string" but
"extract the leftmost substring consisting only of one or more digits
and periods, as many as possible". It might be different. Try it with "
2006.08.06 3:34 UTC ". ;-)
Best regards,
Tony.
