From: John Pywtorak <jpywtora@...>
Date: 2007-12-15T03:12:41+09:00
Subject: Re: simple way to turn "foo and bar" to "+foo +bar"

Hi max,

How about...

irb(main):001:0> "foo and bar".sub(/(foo) and (bar)/, "+#{$1} +#{$2}")
=> "+foo +bar"
irb(main):002:0> "foo and bar".sub(/(foo) and (bar)/, '+\1 +\2')
=> "+foo +bar"
irb(main):003:0> "foo and bar and snafu".sub(/(foo) and (bar) and 
(snafu)/, '+\1 +\2 +\3')
=> "+foo +bar +snafu"

or

irb(main):004:0> "foo and bar and snafu".gsub(/(\w+)\s+and/, 
'+\1').sub(/(\w+)$/, '+\1')
=> "+foo +bar +snafu"

Max Williams wrote:
> I want to add a slightly hacky feature into my boolean mysql search
> which lets users write 'foo and bar', which is then translated into
> '+foo +bar' (ie both 'foo' and 'bar' must be present) before being
> passed to the search.  Similarly, "foo and bar and snafu" should be
> translated into "+foo +bar +snafu".
> 
> I'm sure there must be a simple way to do this but i'm new to ruby and
> have got bogged down in loads of nested ifs and exceptions already.
> 
> Can anyone help with an elegant solution?
> 
> thanks
> max