From: Martin DeMello <martindemello@...>
Date: 2007-07-20T20:32:13+09:00
Subject: Re: Is there a replacement for sub?

On 7/20/07, Robert Dober <robert.dober@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I was reading this whole thread and I kind of think to be dreaming, I
> must have missed something obvious!!!
> Anyway maybe this is was OP wants, well I think it is ;)
>
> 529/29 > irb
> irb(main):001:0> a='a b c d e f'
> => "a b c d e f"
> irb(main):002:0> a.gsub!(" ","")

Nope, he wants a method that only replaces the first n occurrences of
the pattern. gsub will not do this - you need to run sub in a loop.
(This is where perl's "continue matching where you left off" would
have been a nice optimisation)

martin