From: Daniel Harple <dharple@...>
Date: 2006-05-03T03:50:03+09:00
Subject: Re: Easy way to escape text for use in regexps?

On May 2, 2006, at 8:45 PM, Wes Gamble wrote:

> I need to be able to include some arbitrary text as input into a  
> regular
> expression and I'm looking for a way to escape regular expression
> metacharacters within my data(e.g. escape a "?" for example).

$ ri Regexp::escape
--------------------------------------------------------- Regexp::escape
      Regexp.escape(str)   => a_str
      Regexp.quote(str)    => a_str
------------------------------------------------------------------------
      Escapes any characters that would have special meaning in a
      regular expression. Returns a new escaped string, or self if no
      characters are escaped. For any string, Regexp.escape(str)=~str
      will be true.

         Regexp.escape('\*?{}.')   #=> \\*\?\{\}\.