How do I test a WHOLE string against regex in ruby?

Question

Hey,

How do I a string against a regex such that it will return true if the whole string matches (not a substring)?

eg:

test( \ee\ , "street" ) #=> returns false
test( \ee\ , "ee" ) #=> returns true!

Thank you.

Answer 1

You can match the beggining of the string with \A and the end with \Z. In ruby ^ and $ match also the beginning and end of the line:

>> "a\na" =~ /^a$/
=> 0
>> "a\na" =~ /\Aa\Z/
=> nil
>> "a\na" =~ /\Aa\na\Z/
=> 0

Answer 2

So, what you are asking is how to test whether the two strings are equal, right? Just use string equality! This passes every single one of the examples that both you and Tomas cited:

'ee'   == 'street' # => false
'ee'   == 'ee'     # => true
"a\na" == 'a'      # => false
"a\na" == "a\na"   # => true