From: Wybo Dekker <wybo@...>
Date: 2008-04-03T06:39:04+09:00
Subject: Re: confused by 'test'.gsub(/.*/,'x')

Jens Wille wrote:

> as soon as you anchor the regexp at the beginning of the string it
> gives the expected result:
> 
> irb> 'test'.gsub(/\A.*/) { |m| p m; 'x'}
> "test"
> =>"x"
> 
> or just do:
> 
> irb> 'test'.sub(/.*/) { |m| p m; 'x'}
> "test"
> =>"x"

sure, that works, and so does test.gsub(/.+/,'x').
The point is that I don't understand why test.gsub(/.*/,'x') gives me 
'xx', since .* means: zero or more of any character, except the newline 
character, i.e.: all of the string should be replaced with a single x, 
as far as I can see.


-- 
Wybo