From: "Morris, Chris" <chris.morris@...>
Date: 2002-05-09T02:23:57+09:00
Subject: RegExp: using $& in 2nd gsub argument

i want to do the following:

  "test\n (he\nllo) \nhey".gsub(/\((.*\n.*)\)/, $&.gsub("\n", ''))

but it fails because $& is nil. If $& was filled in time for the 2nd gsub,
it'd work:

irb(main):006:0> "test\n (he\nllo) \nhey" =~ /\((.*\n.*)\)/
6
irb(main):007:0> $&
"(he\nllo)"
irb(main):008:0> "test\n (he\nllo) \nhey".gsub(/\((.*\n.*)\)/, $&.gsub("\n",
''))
"test\n (hello) \nhey"

Bigger picture -- I've got source code like this:

procedure Name;
begin
  assert('this thing', 
   (x = 5));
end;

... and I want to make all the assert calls on the same line:

procedure Name;
begin
  assert('this thing', (x = 5));
end;

This regexp:

  /assert.*;/m

correctly matches, and then I can strip the newlines out of $&, but it'd be
nice if there was a way to do this in a single .gsub call. Is there?

Chris Morris
chris.morris@snelling.com