From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2009-04-04T03:39:33+09:00
Subject: Re: how to substitute group of words in a line with another text

On 03.04.2009 20:10, Muralidharan Regupathy wrote:
> I am trying to create a routine which will convert text to SMS lingo
> format. For example a sentence might contain "This should be done as
> soon as possible". I have created a HASH which stores "ASAP" => "as soon
> as possible".
> My routine should parse the message and subsitute with "ASAP" and return
> a string "This should be done ASAP".
> 
> def SMSdeflater(message)
> 
>     @smsdictionary.each_pair do
>       |key, value|
>       tmpvalue = value.chomp.downcase
>       msg=message.chomp.downcase
>       puts "looking for <#{tmpvalue}> in <#{msg}>"
>       newmsg=msg.gsub(tmpvalue,key)
>       puts newmsg
>  end
> 
> the above mentioned code is not working, any help is appreciated

If there are not many phrases you can use Regexp.union:

msg.gsub Regexp.union(@smsdictionary.keys) do |match|
   @smsdictionary[match]
end

Kind regards

	robert