From: "Aleksi Niemelä" <aleksi.niemela@...>
Date: 2000-12-13T04:28:41+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:7098] RE:  Rubyize this method

Morris Chris asked:

> I'd hoped there was a built in 
> string method to do what this does

I'm not sure there's a method for this. I guess there's not. But it's not
too hard to do by yourself, and even easy enough to write inline when
needed. But here's an example of wrapped version.

I'd use the name you've chosen (if it's good), and use regexps:

  class String
    def lopOff(substr)    # actually pattern might be better name
      sub!(substr, "")    # and sub!(/^#{substr}/, "") better
    end                   # implementation
  end

  a = "test this"
  p a   #=> "test this"
  a.lopOff("tes")
  p a   #=> "t this"

Regexps might be slower than needed, in this kind of easy case, and
handwritten C version, along the lines of your Ruby version could fit the
place. Nevertheless, I think this is not so common case that we should add
it to standard String.

> I assume it's probably staring me in the face...

It might be. There might be some magic with indices, but usually when I
think of strings and manipulations I start to wonder the shape of regexp...

	- Aleksi