Regex for Validating Mixed Content Strings in Ruby - implementing Nested Delimiters
I'm wondering if anyone has experience with I'm upgrading from an older version and I'm prototyping a solution and This might be a silly question, but I'm trying to validate strings that contain a mix of letters, numbers, and special characters in Ruby using regex..... Specifically, I want to allow for strings that may contain nested parentheses and optional dashes. For example, the string `ABC-123(def-456)` should be valid, but `XYZ(789-0)` should also pass, while `Invalid(123-)` should not. I've tried creating a regex pattern like this: ```ruby pattern = /^(?!.*-\))(?!.*\(-)[A-Za-z0-9\s-()]+$/ ``` However, I'm getting unexpected results. The regex fails to capture valid strings with nested parentheses and also marks some valid ones as invalid. Here's a sample of my test code: ```ruby valid_strings = [ 'ABC-123(def-456)', 'XYZ(789-0)', 'Valid(123)' ] invalid_strings = [ 'Invalid(123-)', 'Not-Valid)(123)', 'Wrong-Format()()' ] valid_strings.each do |str| puts "#{str}: #{str.match?(pattern)}" end invalid_strings.each do |str| puts "#{str}: #{str.match?(pattern)}" end ``` When I run this code, I find that it's incorrectly marking `Valid(123)` as invalid. I'm using Ruby 3.0.0, and I want to ensure that my regex can handle these mixed content strings correctly without being overly complex. Any suggestions on how to refine my regex or troubleshoot this scenario? How can I effectively manage nested structures and optional characters in my pattern? This is part of a larger CLI tool I'm building. Thanks, I really appreciate it! I've been using Ruby for about a year now. How would you solve this? What's the best practice here? I'm coming from a different tech stack and learning Ruby.