viseztrance on Github Ruby Styleguide

Comment on Github Ruby Styleguide parent

The following are equivalent:

  if /(?<meaningful_var>regexp)/ =~ string
    puts meaningful_var
  end

  if /(regexp)/ =~ string
    puts $1
  end

This may not look like much, but bare in mind you may be using the current selection in several places, at which point you'll probably use the following for readability either way:

  meaningful_var = $1

In any case I think that sometimes the latter is preferable, that's why I'm not into these kind of black and white conventions. OMG, this line is 85 characters, you suck.

yalue 13y

It is true that one will probably immediately reassign the $- variables. And that's definitely true that there are cases when conventions impede good style. I would probably say, though, that in most cases the latter of your examples is preferable.

    if string =~ /First: (.*?) Last: (.*?)\s/
      first_name = $1
      last_name = $2
      # etc...
    end

looks far better to me than

    if string =~ /First: (?<first_name>.*?) Last: (?<last_name>.*?)\s/
      # etc...
    end

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