From: "Michael W. Ryder" <_mwryder@...>
Date: 2007-05-05T03:50:11+09:00
Subject: Re: Is there a better way to do this?

Ken Bloom wrote:
> On Fri, 04 May 2007 00:43:34 +0000, Michael W. Ryder wrote:
> 
>> As part of my learning Ruby I am trying to learn how to format strings.
>>   The following is an example for formatting a U.S. phone number:
>>
>> a = "1234567890"
>> b = "(000) 000-0000"
>> ai = 0
>>
>> for i in 0..(b.length) -1
>>    if b[i,1] == "0"
>>      b[i,1] = a[ai,1]
>>      ai += 1
>>    end
>> end
>> puts b
>>
>> Is there a better (more Rubyish) way to do this? Obviously I will want
>> to add more code in the future to handle exceptions like phone numbers
>> that are not 10 characters long or are longer, but this will get me
>> started.
> 
> puts a.sub(/(...)(...)(....)/,'(\1) \2-\3')
> 
> when you have other formats, use if a.length == whatever to decide which 
> pattern to apply.
> 
> --Ken
> 
That looks very interesting!  Thanks for the code.  I think it will work 
great for parts of the method.  With very little work this I can make 
this work for formatting dollar amounts, etc.