From: Gavin Kistner <gavin@...>
Date: 2005-10-30T03:44:49+09:00
Subject: Strip leading indentation [was Re: Iterate over md Array (the Ruby way)]

On Oct 16, 2005, at 2:02 PM, James Edward Gray II wrote:
> On Oct 16, 2005, at 2:56 PM, Brian Schr�der wrote:
>> that is cool. I did not know that it was possible to chain methods to
>> a herdoc like this.
>
> I use that a lot, because I'm very anal and insist on indenting my  
> HERDOCs.  :)  Works great:
>
> data = <<END.gsub(/^  /, "")
>   indented
>   lines
>   go
>   here
> END

Here's what I use; it allows for arbitrary indent level, and indented  
lines within the block:

[Sliver:~/Desktop] gkistner$ cat strip_indent.rb
class String
   def strip_indent
     (new_str = self.dup).strip_indent!
     new_str
   end
   def strip_indent!
     if leading_indent = self[ /\A\s*^([ \t]+)\S/, 1 ]
       self.gsub!( /^#{leading_indent}/, '' )
     end
   end
end

if __FILE__ == $0
   puts <<-ENDTEXT.strip_indent
     It's the end of the world
       (as we know it)
     and I feel fine.
   ENDTEXT
end

[Sliver:~/Desktop] gkistner$ ruby strip_indent.rb
It's the end of the world
   (as we know it)
and I feel fine.