Ruby: What's the proper syntax for a boolean regex method?

Question

What is the proper syntax for a method that checks a string for a pattern, and returns true or false if the regex matches?

Basic idea:

def has_regex?(string)
    pattern = /something/i
    return string =~ pattern
end

Use case:

if has_regex?("something")
    # woohoo
else
    # nothing found: panic!
end

Answer 1

Your code looks fine, but you could write it even smaller.

The return value of String#=~ behaves this way:

• nil if the pattern did not match
• the position in the string where the matched word started

In Ruby everything except nil and false behaves like true in a conditional statement so you can just write

if string=~ pattern
  # do something
else
  # panic
end

Answer 2

If you want the put the pattern in a method, you can just do

def has_my_pattern(st)
    st =~ /pattern/
end

Or, perhaps better, put the pattern in a class variable instead?