From: 7stud -- <lists@...>
Date: 2012-09-01T04:45:21+09:00
Subject: Re: Can someone explain this string substitution issue to me?

Because an escape, e.g. \x in a replacement string is a backreference. 
After ruby evaluates your string to produce \+, the regex engine sees \+ 
in a replacement string, which is the syntax for referring to a matching 
subgroup.  In your case, \+ is especially tricky because it refers to 
the global variable $+, which is the last match from a previous regexp 
match--which is blank in your case.

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