From: ahoward@... (ara howard)
Date: 2002-01-29T02:58:31+09:00
Subject: problems with string interpolation

i'd like do a gsub such that some characters are escapes for later use
by system commands, eg:

	'a - b &\c'  >>  'a\ \-\ b\ \&\\c'

A-Za-z remain unaffected but 'special' chars are escaped

and while this works fine

s = 'a - b &\c'			# the string
e = '\\'			# the escape chr : \

s.gsub(%r{([^A-Za-z])})  {|m| e + $1}  >> 'a\ \-\ b\ \&\\c'  # ok !!

this does not??

s.gsub %r{([^A-Za-z])}, '\\\1'         >> 'a\1\1\1b\1\1\1c'  # huh ??

and

s.gsub %r{([^A-Za-z])}, '\\1'	or

s.gsub %R{([^A-Za-Z])}, '\1'    both leave s *unchaged*


it seems in the first non-working case ('\\\1') that the interpolation
happens twice :

	'\\\1'  ->  '\\1'	# 1st '\\' collapsed

	then starting *again* at the front! huh?

	'\\1'   ->  '\1'        # 2nd '\\' collapsed

	but *not* starting again here?

	'\1'    ->  '\1'        # because '\' was already treated

it seems like there is an error in the 2nd line since the first of the
'\'s had already been treated once, the interpolation should have
moved on to the '\1' by the same logic as the '\1' was not a *real*
'\1' because it's '\' was got by interpolation in the third (correctly
treated?) line.  i'm pretty sure this won't make any sense in writing
but hopefully the examples will shed light on this !$&#@ sub\ j\e\ c\
t.  basically, it seems like the interpolation should have stopped
after line one with '\\1' as the result, and then the substitution
step would have yielded '\<my special char>' instead of it's '\1' ???

-ara