Capture patterns

["Jeff Wise" <jwise@...>]

>What the pattern actually captures is columns separated by whitespace.
>The pattern just forces that the columns corresponding to numbers are the
last three ones, and forces that the first field contains the rest of the
>line.

Thanks again for the explanation. After some consideration, I see how it
works.

I did a very poor job of transferring my problem to a suitable example. When
I tried to adapt the pattern to my 13-number real-world situation, I am
having diffficulty.  I have no doubt this is my bug- not an error in the
provided solution.  The problem with my original pattern was it capturing
dashes in the text or capturing periods as in an abbreviation.  The dollar
amounts are always preceded by a text description.

If I were doing this on my native platform, I would search for periods.  At
each period, I would look for two trailing digits (and perhaps one preceding
digit. (Consider that some use .00 and some 0.00.)  Then I would capture
everything in the string from space to space.  Look at all these possible
formats:

1. $100.00
2. .00
3. 100,000.00
4. -1,234.56
5. (1,234.56)
6. 1,234.56CR
7. 1,234.56-
8. +100.00

My original problem statement was to get a pattern that would do something
similar to the above strategy. My perception is that the code would be more
utilitarian if I did not look for a fixed number of fields, and that I allow
all the common financial notations used in reports.

I read the section in PiL multiple times on patterns (20.3, p. 180ff), and I
think that the section could be better organized by covering the "magic
characters" in order instead of randomly.  This would make the text more
useful as a reference (at least to someone scatter-brained like me).

I think that Lua is an excellent language for this type of problem.  I am
awed by its power and flexibility.



 











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