[Rails] Using re to make BidDecimal's more readable using Regexp: problem

Hi,

I'm on a mission to show my granddaughter how Pi can be computed. For
that, I need Sqrt(2) computed accurately, which I've done. But I need
to display results in 5-digit groups, space separated.

The following aims at displaying the five-or-less decimal components
of a 12-decimal-digit number (related to sqrt(2) but ignoring scaling
and precision for the moment).

bd = BigDecimal("0.141421356237")
group_sz=5
re_string = "\\.(\\d{1," + group_sz.to_s + "})+"
r = Regexp.new(re_string)
m = r.match(bd.to_s)
(0..3). each do |i|
puts( "%s => %s; m[%d] => %s" % [r, m, i, m[i]] )

I get (ignoring scaling for the moment):

(?-mix:\.(\d{1,5})+) => .141421356237; m[0] => .141421356237
(?-mix:\.(\d{1,5})+) => .141421356237; m[1] => 37 # want 14142
(?-mix:\.(\d{1,5})+) => .141421356237; m[2] => # want 13562
(?-mix:\.(\d{1,5})+) => .141421356237; m[3] => # want 37

So the extra set of parentheses I added don't capture the way I want
them to. I can do it using Ruby to generate a bunch of consecutive
\d{1,5} groups to satisfy my requirement, but some insightful Regexp
markup is preferable.

Any ideas?

Thanks in Advance,
Richard

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