Empty array using scan functrion ruby

Question

I'm just getting started in ruby and I have some trouble understanding the scan method:

my_string = "0000000001000100"
string_group = my_string.scan('/...../')
puts string_group
puts string_group.class

It displays that I've got an array but the array is empty. It can't come from my regex because I tested it and tried with another one:

'/[01]{5}/'

Why do I get an empty array?

Answer 1

Because regexes in Ruby are literal, not strings -- you have single quotes around your regex, so scan is searching for the literal string /...../ rather than matches to the regex /...../ . Try this instead:

my_string = "0000000001000100"
string_group = my_string.scan(/...../)

Which gives this:

["00000", "00001", "00010"]