From: Henry Maddocks <hmaddocks@...>
Date: 2012-12-21T06:23:32+09:00
Subject: Re: trying to strip characters from a line


On 21/12/2012, at 9:36 AM, Paul Mena <lists@ruby-forum.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> Executing the code results in an "archive.html" file with all of the
> "stripped" characters still intact.  Am I invoking the gsub method
> incorrectly?  Thanks in advance for any help.

There are two forms of gsub…

>> line = "this is a line with ***** in it"
=> "this is a line with ***** in it"
>> line.gsub '*', ''
=> "this is a line with  in it"
>> line
=> "this is a line with ***** in it"
>> line.gsub! '*', ''
=> "this is a line with  in it"
>> line
=> "this is a line with  in it"

The first form returns a new string, the second modifies the receiver.

Also your regexp in the gsub probably doesn't do what you think it does. You might want something like…

line.gsub /[\[\],"]/, "**"

Henry