From: Brian Candler <lists@...>
Date: 2012-09-01T16:20:07+09:00
Subject: Re: Regular Expression Conundrums

Stan Stanislaus wrote in post #1074140:
> http://pastie.org/4643789
>
> Why, in Case 2, do I have to escape the asterisk twice to keep the
> program from thinking /\ is a substarter? Thank you all for your help! I
> really appreciate this.

The string literal '\\' or "\\" is a single backslash.

>> "\\".size
=> 1
>> '\\'.size
=> 1
>> puts "\\"
\
=> nil

The reason is because backslash-X sequences in string literals have 
special meanings, so a literal backslash is backslash-backslash

In a single quoted string, only \\ and \' are interpreted specially; any 
other sequences are passed through as-is. In a double-quoted string 
there are lots more, e.g. \n for newline, \xNN for hex byte.

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