You can use gstrings in the patterns just like in any other string, so for your example, this should work:

def myparam = "([1][2][3])"
def pattern = ~"$myparam ([0-9/-]+)([0-9/-]+)"
 
evp = "123 456"
 
// asserts just show what will be matched for example string
// returns the group matching what's in myparam
evp.find(pattern) { full, matchedMyParam, firstDigitGroup, secondDigitGroup ->
    assert full == "123 456"
    assert matchedMyParam == "123"
    assert firstDigitGroup == "45"
    assert secondDigitGroup == "6"
    return matchedMyParam
}

Hope that helps!

Any help is grealtly apreciated.

Thanks:
Nikolas

Your statement regarding replaceAll: “does it replace the whole match, and you have to construct it out of the parameters representing the groups” is the correct one.

The entire thing that was matched by the regexp statement is replaced by whatever is returned. You just have access to the groups to help you parse out the different pieces to help you construct the updated string. A couple of examples:

without groups, it replaces the whole match:

assert "foo qux qux" == "foo bar baz".replaceAll(/b../) { wholeMatch ->
   return "qux"
}

with groups, you can use the groups to help you construct the result, but it still replaces the whole match (and leaves the start of the string, “foo”, untouched):

assert "foo car caz" == "foo bar baz".replaceAll(/b(..)/) { wholeMatch, lastTwoChars ->
   return "c" + lastTwoChars
}

Hope that helps!

One thing I’m still confused by — for replaceAll with a closure, you get pass the whole match, and then all the groups, right? And it seems from your example that the closure’s result replaces the first group if there are groups?

What if there’s more than one group? How can I replace individual ones? Or does it replace the whole match, and you have to construct it out of all the parameters representing the groups?

An example for that would be great.

Thanks!

Thanks

matcher = ( "test1 test2" =~ /test([0-9]+)/ )
matcher.each { fullMatch, number ->
    println "full match: $fullMatch, number: $number"
}

prints:

full match: test1, number: 1
full match: test2, number: 2

I was struggling to get groups out of a find until I read this :

“A limitation of the iterator-based methods is that they don’t give you access to the individual groups”

why doesn’t this work (why Is x a sting instead of list ) :

matcher = ( “test1 test2″ =~ /test([0-9]+)/ )

for ( x in matcher ){
println x
}