write Regex to find match - ruby-on-rails

Question

I never wrote any complex regular expression before, and what I need seems to be (at least) a bit complicated.
I need a Regex to find matches for the following:
"On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 4:39 PM"
Where On will always be there;
then 3 characters for week day;
, is always there;
space is always there;
then 3 characters for month name;
space is always there;
day of month (one or two numbers);
, is always there;
space is always there;
4 numbers for year;
space at space always there;
time (have to match 4:39 as well as 10:39);
space and 2 caps letters for AM or PM.

Answer 1

Here's a very simple and readable one:
/On \w{3}, \w{3} \d{1,2}, \d{4} at \d{1,2}:\d{2} [AP]M/
See it on rubular

Answer 2

Try this:
On\s+(?:Mon|Tue|Wed|Thu|Fri|Sat|Sun), (?:Jan|Feb|Mar|Apr|May|June|July|Aug|Sept|Oct|Nov|Dec) \d{1,2}, \d{4} at \d{1,2}:\d{2} (?:AM|PM)

Answer 3

/On \w{3}, \w{3} \d{1,2}, \d{4} at \d{1,2}:\d{1,2} [A-Z]{2}/
# \w{3} for 3 charecters
# \d{1,2} for a or 2 digits
# \d{4} for 4 digits
# [A-Z]{2} for 2 capital leters

Answer 4

You could try the below regex and it won't check for the month name or day name or date.
^On\s[A-Z][a-z]{2},\s[A-Z][a-z]{2}\s\d{1,2},\s\d{4}\sat\s(?:10|4):39\s[AP]M$
DEMO

Answer 5

You can use Rubular to construct and test Ruby Regular Expressions.
I have put together an Example: http://rubular.com/r/45RIiwheqs
Since it looks you try to parse dates, you should use Date.strptime.

Answer 6

/On [A-Za-z]{3}, [A-Za-z]{3} \d{1,2}, \d{4} at \d{1,2}:\d{1,2}/g

Answer 7

The way you are describing the problem makes me thing that the format will always be preserved.
I would then in your case use the Time.parse function, passing the format string
format = "On %a, %b"On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 4:39 PM", format)
which is more readable than a regexp (in my opinion) and has the added value that it returns a Time object, which is easier to use than a regexp match, in case you need to perform other time-based calculations.
Another good thing is that if the string contains an invalid date (like "On Mon, Jan 59, 2015 at 37:99 GX" ) the parse function will raise an exception, so that validation is done for free for you.