From: duerst@... Date: 2017-01-20T07:50:25+00:00 Subject: [ruby-core:79187] [Ruby trunk Feature#12745] String#(g)sub(!) should pass a MatchData to the block, not a String Issue #12745 has been updated by Martin D��rst. Herwin W wrote: > Regarding `String#gsb` and `String#sb`: It is far from clear what the difference between `#sub` and `#sb` is just by the method names. And personally I don't care that much about the length of the method names, I prefer clearness over shortness. Agreed. I also think that the new methods should have longer names (maybe shorter than `gsub_with_match_object`, but still longer than just `gsub`), because most of the time, the old methods will do just fine (they did so for more than 20 years of Ruby history). ---------------------------------------- Feature #12745: String#(g)sub(!) should pass a MatchData to the block, not a String https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12745#change-62611 * Author: Herwin W * Status: Feedback * Priority: Normal * Assignee: Yukihiro Matsumoto * Target version: ---------------------------------------- A simplified (and stupid) example: replace some placeholders in a string with function calls ~~~ruby def placeholder(val) raise 'Incorrect value' unless val == 'three' '3' end str = '1.2.[three].4' str.gsub!(/\[(\w+)\]/) { |m| placeholder(m) } ~~~ This raises the 'incorrect value' because we don't pass the match 'three', but the full string '[three]'. It looks like we have 3 options to fix that: 1. Match `[three]` instead of `three` in the placeholder replacement method 2. Pass `m[1..-2]` instead of `m` to the method (or strip it in `placeholder`) 3. Use `$1` in the method call, ignore the value that's passed to the block Options 1 and 2 look kind of code duplication to me (and they're possible in the simplified example, but might get tricky in real situations). I don't like option 3 because you completely ignore the value that's been passed to the block in favor of global variables, you can't use named captures, and writing code this way makes it incompatible with Rubinius. I think it would be more logical to pass a `MatchData` (like what you'd get with `String#match`) instead of a `String` to the block. The `#to_s` returns the whole string, so in 90% of the use cases the code could remain unaltered, but the remaining 10% makes it a change that shouldn't be backported to 2.3. Attached is a very naive patch to pass a matchdata to the block called by `String#sub`. The additional change in `rbinstall.rb` was required to run `make install`, which actually shows an incompatiblity (which I hadn't anticipated) ---Files-------------------------------- ruby_string_sub_matchdata.diff (952 Bytes) -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/ Unsubscribe: