Ruby script to extract email addresses from a string using a regular expression.

email_extract.rb

@string = '<p><a href="http://plop.com">plop</a><br /><a mailto:ray@plop.com>ray@plop.com</a><br />cathy@plop.com.au</p>'
RE = /[\w.!#\$%+-]+@[\w-]+(?:\.[\w-]+)+/
def email_extract(doc = @string)
  puts "Attempting to extract emails from a string"
  emails = Array.new
  doc.downcase.scan(RE).each do | email | emails.push email end
  emails.uniq!
  return emails
end
emails = email_extract #'<p><a href="http://notplop.com">not plop</a><br /><a mailto:raymond@notplop.com>ray@notplop.com</a><br />cathy@notplop.com.au</p>'

puts emails.size
puts emails