# class Source

A Source can be searched for patterns, and wraps buffers and other objects and provides consumption of text

## Attributes

- buffer
- line

## Methods

- empty
- initialize
- match
- scan

## Attributes

buffer (reader) The current buffer (what we're going to read next)
line (reader) The line number of the last consumed text

## Methods

### empty

Returns true if the Source is exhausted

### initialize

#### Arguments

arg
must be a String, and should be a valid XML document

Constructor

### match

#### Arguments

pattern
consume<false>

### scan

#### Arguments

pattern
must be a Regexp, and must be in the form of /^\s*(#{your pattern, with no groups})(.*)/. The first group will be returned; the second group is used if the consume flag is set.
consume<false>
if true, the pattern returned will be consumed, leaving everything after it in the Source.
Returns the pattern, if found, or nil if the Source is empty or the pattern is not found.

Scans the source for a given pattern. Note, that this is not your usual scan() method. For one thing, the pattern argument has some requirements; for another, the source can be consumed. You can easily confuse this method. Originally, the patterns were easier to construct and this method more robust, because this method generated search regexes on the fly; however, this was computationally expensive and slowed down the entire REXML package considerably, since this is by far the most commonly called method.