From: "Rüdiger Bahns" <ruedi@...>
Date: 2009-08-06T22:55:07+09:00
Subject: Re: remove commas from string

s.ross schrieb:
...
>>>  $ irb1.9
>>>
>>>  irb(main):001:0> s = "B747-400, 8,357 miles, 561 mph, 56,000 lbs."
>>>  => "B747-400, 8,357 miles, 561 mph, 56,000 lbs."
>>>
>>>  irb(main):002:0> s.gsub(/(?<=\d),(?=\d)/, '')
>>>  => "B747-400, 8357 miles, 561 mph, 56000 lbs."
>> I'r rather do this to be a bit more robust:
>>
>> irb(main):003:0> s.gsub(/(?<=\d),(?=\d{3})/, '')
>> => "B747-400, 8357 miles, 561 mph, 56000 lbs."
>>
>> Kind regards
>>
>> robert
> 
> Why so complex? Perhaps:
> 
>  >> s.gsub(/\b(\d+),(\d+)\b/, '\1\2')
> => "B747-400, 8357 miles, 561 mph, 56000 lbs."
> 
> Is there a corner case I'm missing here?

This would make 2344,667 from 2,344,667 (leave the second comma). (Why 
the "\b"s and not just /(\d),(\d{3})/ ?)

To clean up sums like those that are made as gifts for banks in this 
times (like 1,000,000,000,000) in 1.8 you need something like

  s.gsub /\d(,\d{3})+/ do |mo|; mo.gsub ',',''; end


R.