ruby - What regex can I use to split a string into words but keep phrases in round brackets together? -

i'd split string this:

my_string = "i want split (these should stay together) correctly" 

and have following result:

["i", "want", "to", "split", "this", "(these should stay together)", "correctly"] 

i tried this:

my_string.split(/(?=[^\(]){1,} (?=[^\)]){1,}/) 

but elements inside round brackets separated. how can achieve this?

split wrong tool here. use scan.

my_string.scan(/\([^)]*\)|\s+/) # => ["i", "want", "to", "split", "this", "(these should stay together)", "correctly"] 

if balanced parentheses can adjacent other non-space characters, want put together, might want one, works more generally:

my_string.scan(/(?:\([^)]*\)|\s)+/) 

in general, when delimiters can expressed in simple pattern, use split. when content can expressed in simple pattern, use scan.