From: james.d.masters@...
Date: 2007-06-07T07:35:06+09:00
Subject: Re: Error when substituting a backslash in a string

On Jun 6, 2:59 pm, "Federico Zagarzaz�" <fzagarz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Why can't I substitute a single backslash in a string?
> a = "\\6"
> ...
> p a.sub('\', '')

Because you're essentially escaping a single quote in your String#sub
method call.  Double escape that too:

irb(main):001:0> a = "\\6"
=> "\\6"
irb(main):002:0> a.sub('\\', '')
=> "6"

Why is this?  Suppose I wanted to make a string with single quotes in
it:

irb(main):003:0> a = '\'hello\''
=> "'hello'"