[ruby-core:94235] [Ruby master Bug#16091] gsub

Issue #16091 has been updated by jeremyevans0 (Jeremy Evans).

Status changed from Feedback to Rejected

This is not a bug. Ruby treats `\&` in a replacement string specially, representing the entire matched string (note that `"\\&"` is the same as `'\&'`):

```ruby
"test ?".sub("?", "1\\&2")
=> "test 1?2"
```

So `"\\&"` as a replacement string means perform the replacement, but use the same text as what you are replacing.

If you want to replace something with `\&`, you need to double the backslashes:

```ruby
puts "test ?".sub("?", "\\\\&")
# output: test \&
```

If you want to replace something with `&`, use no backslashes:

```ruby
puts "test ?".sub("?", '&')
# output: test &
```


Python does not handle `\&` specially, which is why the behavior is different.

----------------------------------------
Bug #16091: gsub
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/16091#change-80541

* Author: thiaguerd (thiago feitosa)
* Status: Rejected
* Priority: Normal
* Assignee: 
* Target version: 
* ruby -v: 2.6.2p47 (2019-03-13 revision 67232) [x86_64-linux]
* Backport: 2.5: UNKNOWN, 2.6: UNKNOWN
----------------------------------------
```ruby
a = "test ?"
b = "?"
c = "\\&"
a.gsub(b,c)
```



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