Lua string.find correct format?

Question

I have quite simple question, but my google research did not help.. I am pretty new to Lua, so..

I have string "XXXX_YYYYYY_zzzzzz" stored in local variable and I want to parse it and get 3 new local variables. Should I use string.find?

local str_ = "XXXX_YYYYY_zzzzzz"    
local first_, second_, third_ = strind.find(str_, "^(%w+)_(%w+)_(%w+)$")

hjpotter92 · Accepted Answer · 2015-11-12T13:34:59.720

5

Use string.match instead:

local str_ = "XXXX_YYYYY_zzzzzz"    
local first_, second_, third_ = str_:match "^([^_]+)_([^_]+)_([^_]+)$"

Have a look at the string library on lua-users wiki.

string.find would additionally return the indexes where the matched substring was located/found. These two (start and end) indices are not useful to your case, which is why string.match would be a better tool.

edited Nov 12 '15 at 13:34

answered Nov 12 '15 at 13:29

hjpotter92

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Instead of `%w+`, you can use `.-` just in case the fields contain punctuation. – lhf Nov 12 '15 at 13:34
@lhf I'd rather go with `[^_]`. Anyway, these speculations would depend on more input from OPs side. – hjpotter92 Nov 12 '15 at 13:36

Lua string.find correct format?

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