Split string terms

Question

I have the following string:

str = "peep toe t-shirt blue"

I need to split the items using space:

str.split(" ")

And I get

[pee, toe, t-shirt, blue]

The questions is that peep toe must not be splitted, because it's a name that makes sense together. Is there a way to solve this?

Answer 1

I think it's good to use split and then fix up the data later:

str = "peep toe t-shirt blue"
words = str.split(" ")
phrases = []
i = 0
while i < words.size
  if words[i] == 'peep' && words[i + 1] == 'toe'
    phrases << 'peep toe'
    i += 2
  else
    phrases << words[i]
    i += 1
  end
end
p phrases