;;; -*- lexical-binding: t -*-
;;
;; this file:
;;   https://dataswamp.org/~incal/emacs-init/match-data-format.el

(defun make-match-list (num str)
  (let ((match (match-string num str)))
    (when match
      (cons match (make-match-list (1+ num) str)) )))

(defun match-data-format (data match format-str)
  (save-match-data
    (string-match match data)
    (apply #'message format-str (make-match-list 1 data)) ))

(when nil
    (match-data-format
     "From: Joe Hacker <get@this.data>"
     "\\(.*\\): *\\(.*[[:alnum:]]\\) *<\\(.*\\)>"
     "header is: %s\nname is: %s\ne-mail is: %s")
    )                                          ; ^eval me

;; output from eval'd command:
;;
;; header is: From
;; name is: Joe Hacker
;; e-mail is: get@this.data

(provide 'match-data-format)