How can I extract the words from this string " !!one!! **two** @@three@@" using Regex in Ruby

Question

In IRB, I can do this:
c = /(\b\w+\b)\W*(\b\w+\b)\W*(\b\w+\b)\W*/.match(" !!one** *two* @@three@@ ")

And get this:
=> MatchData "one** *two* @@three@@ " 1:"one" 2:"two" 3:"three"

But assuming I don't know the number of words in advance, how can I still extract all words out of the string". For example, it might be " !!one** *two* @@three@@ " in one instance, but might be " !!five** *six* " in another instance.

Thanks.

Answer 1

> " !!one** *two* @@three@@ ".scan(/\w+/)
=> ["one", "two", "three"]

Also, scan can return array of arrays in case of using ().

> "Our fifty users left 500 posts this month.".scan(/([a-z]+|\d+)\s+(posts|users)/i)
=> [["fifty", "users"], ["500", "posts"]]

http://ruby-doc.org/core/classes/String.html#M000812

Answer 2

Thanks for the tip with the String#scan method. Can the same be done with regular expression. I'm trying to learn how to use regular expression as it can be applied to other languages.

Thanks for all the tips.