From: Mark Hubbart <discordantus@...>
Date: 2005-05-27T12:54:30+09:00
Subject: Re: Using string.slice for unicode chars

On 5/26/05, Ilya V. Sabanin <ilya.sabanin@gmail.com> wrote:> Hi,> > I try to cut unicode string with "slice" method but looks like Ruby> unable to do this.> Of course I requiring 'jcode':> > $KCODE = 'u'> require 'jcode'> > So, Ruby unable to cut utf-8 strings?
Not yet. I think it's slated for 2.0 (or 1.9 first) Some possible workarounds:
ruby 1.8.2 (2004-12-25) on powerpc-darwin8.0.0Welcome to Interactive Ruby  us = 'Ṧȶȑïŋɠ'    ==>"Ṧȶȑïŋɠ"  us.scan(/./)    ==>["Ṧ", "ȶ", "ȑ", "ï", "ŋ", "ɠ"]  us.unpack('U*')    ==>[7782, 566, 529, 239, 331, 608]
regexen will abide by the kcode, or you can unpack the utf-8 string asan array of integer code points.
It shouldn't be too hard to wrap the regexp idea into a u_slicemethod. here's an untested lightwieght version:
  class String    def u_slice(index, size = 1)      self[/.{#{index}}(.{#{size}})/, 1]    end    def u_slice!(index, size = 1)      str = self[/.{#{index}}(.{#{size}})/, 1]      self[/.{#{index}}(.{#{size}})/, 1] = ""      str    end  end