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End of Life Ruby 3.1 has reached end of life and gets no more fixes. Switch to Ruby 4.0 →

instance method

StringScanner#[]

[](n)

Returns the n-th subgroup in the most recent match.

Example
s = StringScanner.new("Fri Dec 12 1975 14:39")
s.scan(/(\w+) (\w+) (\d+) /)       # -> "Fri Dec 12 "
s[0]                               # -> "Fri Dec 12 "
s[1]                               # -> "Fri"
s[2]                               # -> "Dec"
s[3]                               # -> "12"
s.post_match                       # -> "1975 14:39"
s.pre_match                        # -> ""

s.reset
s.scan(/(?<wday>\w+) (?<month>\w+) (?<day>\d+) /)       # -> "Fri Dec 12 "
s[0]                               # -> "Fri Dec 12 "
s[1]                               # -> "Fri"
s[2]                               # -> "Dec"
s[3]                               # -> "12"
s[:wday]                           # -> "Fri"
s[:month]                          # -> "Dec"
s[:day]                            # -> "12"
s.post_match                       # -> "1975 14:39"
s.pre_match                        # -> ""
See also #<< #beginning_of_line? .new #captures also in 4.1 · 4.0 · 3.4 · 3.3 · 3.2 · 3.0