From: seebs@... (Peter Seebach)
Date: 2007-06-11T23:12:31+09:00
Subject: Re: why gsub! doesn't work in my script

In message <b4c60e38ff75eea451c544b6d2d7a2a2@ruby-forum.com>, Li Chen writes:
>Thanks, but the replacement still doesn't work.

>It is my understanding that Regexp#escape method should do the magic 
>work for me.

Your understanding makes no sense.

When you put a backslash in a string, it is eaten up by the interpreter
BEFORE ANY METHODS ARE ACTUALLY CALLED.  Regexp#escape gets the string
AFTER backslashes have been eaten.

So there's nothing there for it to escape.  The escape method isn't
magic; it can't tell how your source is laid out, only what actual string
it is given.

-s