From: Sarah Allen <sarah@...>
Date: 2009-05-11T08:52:09+09:00
Subject: gsub pattern substitution and ${...}

I'm trying to escape a URI that is matched by a regular expression with
gsub.

In irb, here's my string:
>> s = "<a href='http://foo.com/one=>two'/>"
=> "<a href='http://foo.com/one=>two'/>"

Now I want to match href="..." or href='...' and then URI.escape the
characters withing the quotes
>> require URI
==> true

First I tried this:
>> s.gsub(/href=(['"])([^']*)/, 'href=\1#{URL.escape($2)}\3')
=> "<a href='\#{URL.escape($2)}'/>"

Of course, that doesn't work since ${expr} will only eval the expression
within a double quoted string.

But when it is double quoted, like this:

>> s.gsub(/href=(['"])([^']*)/, "href=\1#{URI.escape($2)}\3")
=> "<a href=\001http://foo.com/one=%3Etwo\003'/>

\1 doesn't evaluate to the first match anymore

I would guess there's some basic string or regex syntax that I'm missing
here. I've looked at the gsub and string documentation, and either I
missed it or I should be looking elsewhere.

Can someone give me a clue and help me move forward with my mother's day
hacking session?

Thanks in advance,
Sarah
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