Ruby extract data from string using regex -

i'm doing web scraping, format data

sr.no.  course_code course_name credit  grade   attendance_grade 

the actual string receive of following form

1 ca727 principles of compiler design 3 m 

the things interested in course_code, course_name , grade, in example values be

course_code : ca727 course_name : principles of compiler design grade : 

is there way me use regular expression or other technique extract information instead of manually parsing through string. i'm using jruby in 1.9 mode.

let's use ruby's named captures , self-describing regex!

course_line = /     ^                  # starting @ front of string     (?<srno>\d+)       # capture 1 or more digits; call result "srno"     \s+                # eat whitespace     (?<code>\s+)       # capture non-whitespace can; call "code"     \s+                # eat whitespace     (?<name>.+\s)      # capture as can                        # (while letting rest of regex still work)                        # make sure end non-whitespace character.                        # call "name"     \s+                # eat whitespace     (?<credit>\s+)     # capture non-whitespace can; call "credit"     \s+                # eat whitespace     (?<grade>\s+)      # capture non-whitespace can; call "grade"     \s+                # eat whitespace     (?<attendance>\s+) # capture non-whitespace; call "attendance"     $                  # make sure we're @ end of line /x  str = "1   ca727   principles of compiler design   3     m" parts = str.match(course_line)  puts " course code: #{parts['code']} course name: #{parts['name']}       grade: #{parts['grade']}".strip  #=> course code: ca727 #=> course name: principles of compiler design #=>       grade: