Re: string.gsub (Lua 5.1.1)

["Leo Razoumov" <slonik.az@...>]

On 11/7/06, Roberto Ierusalimschy <roberto@inf.puc-rio.br> wrote:
> > Counting matches instead of replacements IMHO is simpler to understand
> > and use. It also provides an easy way to count how many times a given
> > pattern occur in a string.
> >
> > path= "/many/nested/directories"
> > _,n= path:gsub("/",{})  -- n counts "/" chars
>
> I do agree that it is simpler, and that is the main reason we chose it.
> But I am not sure it is "better". You can use other options for this
> code, like
>
>   _,n= path:gsub("/","")
>
> On the other hand, counting only replacements allow some interesting
> tricky counts:
>
>   -- count number of reserved words in string
>   _,n = string.gsub(s, "%w", {[while] = true, [for] = true, ...})
>
>
> -- Roberto

Indeed, counting replacements is more powerful than counting mere matches.
BTW, is "+" missing from the search pattern? I think it should be

_,n = string.gsub(s, "%w+", {[while] = true, [for] = true, ...})

--Leo--