From: Ryan Flynn <parseerror@...>
Date: 2004-09-30T00:50:31+09:00
Subject: Re: scan regular expression and strings

> x = "meet meep meep"
> y = x.gsub(/(.)(\1)/, '\1x\2')

$ irb
irb(main):001:0> $_="meeet"  
=> "meeet"
irb(main):002:0> gsub(/(.)(\1)/, '\1x\2')
=> "mexeet"
irb(main):003:0> gsub(/(.)\1/, '\1x\1')
=> "mexexet"
irb(main):004:0>

i figured it'd be more efficient not to capture the second instance,
and just use \1 again in the replacement since it's the same
character; however, i also got a different ("more correct" i think)
result... do ruby regexes not advance past what they don't capture? i
expected the second one to be slightly more efficient but i expected
the behavior to be identical... can anyone shed some light?