From: Simon Strandgaard <neoneye@...>
Date: 2004-08-24T04:12:44+09:00
Subject: Re: Regexp scanning with MatchData (Re: multiple regexp matches)

Wouldn't it be better to introduce a new method   String#substitute.
I think #gsub and #sub are too short and their name doesn't really
says what they do. When I was new to ruby I recall that I had problems 
distinguishing between #sub and #gsub.

I also want substitute to take a hash with options, like this:

string.substitute(/pattern/, 'replacement', :option1=>1, :option2=>2)

Possible options could be:

:repeat,  which says how many times that substitution should occur.
For instance   :repeat=>1   is equal to  #sub
For instance  :repeat=>nil  is equal to #gsub
It could also be named  :repeat_once=>true  


:literal,  which tells #substitute that the content of
the replacement string should be interpreted as literal.. no extra-escaping
are then necessary.
For instance  
string.substitute(/pa(tt)ern/, 'a\1b', :literal=>true)
will insert 'a\1b' as literal, without inserting capture 1.

Maybe there is other options.



when supplied a block, then it should yield matchdata

string.substitute(/pattern/) do |matchdata|
	matchdata[2].reverse
end


--
Simon Strandgaard