String#match?

regexp.match?(string) -> true or false

Returns: Boolean · Updated March 14, 2026 · String Methods

regex matching performance boolean

The match? method performs a regex match and returns true or false without creating MatchData objects. This makes it faster than match when you only need to know if there’s a match.

Basic Usage

# Simple matching
/relo/.match?("Hello")     # => true
/relo/.match?("World")     # => false

Performance Advantage

# match? is faster because it doesn't create MatchData
email = "user@example.com"
pattern = /^[^\s@]+@[^\s@]+\.[^\s@]+$/

# With match? - just boolean check
pattern.match?(email)  # => true

# With match - creates MatchData object (slower)
pattern.match(email)   # => #<MatchData "user@example.com">

Practical Examples

Validation

def valid_email?(email)
  /^[^\s@]+@[^\s@]+\.[^\s@]+$/.match?(email)
end

valid_email?("test@example.com")  # => true
valid_email?("invalid")           # => false

Conditional Processing

text = "Error: Something went wrong"

if /Error/.match?(text)
  puts "Errors found in: #{text}"
end

Multiple Patterns

patterns = [/ruby/, /python/, /go/]
text = "I love programming in ruby"

patterns.any? { |p| p.match?(text) }  # => true

With Position (Ruby 2.7+)

# Can specify start position
"hello world".match?(/world/, 6)  # => true
"hello world".match?(/world/, 0)  # => false

Return Value

# Returns true or false
result = /cat/.match?("concatenation")
puts result  # => true (substring exists)

# No MatchData created
result = /(\d+)/.match?("abc123")
puts result  # => true, but $1 is nil (no capture)

Comparison with Other Methods

pattern = /\d+/

# match? - just boolean, no MatchData
pattern.match?("abc123")  # => true

# match - returns MatchData or nil
pattern.match("abc123")   # => #<MatchData "123">

# =~ - returns position or nil
pattern =~ "abc123"       # => 3

Use Cases

Validation checks
Conditional branching based on presence
Performance-critical code
When you don’t need match details