baci:~/wise mikel$ ./script/console 
Loading development environment.
>>  m = "item".match(%r!^([#.]?)([a-z0-9\\*_-]*)!i).to_a; puts $'.inspect
""
=> nil
>> m
=> ["item", "", "item"]
>> require 'hpricot'
=> []
>>  m = "item".match(%r!^([#.]?)([a-z0-9\\*_-]*)!i).to_a; puts $'.inspect
""
=> nil
>>