From: Ryan Pavlik <rpav@...>
Date: 2003-05-30T07:07:36+09:00
Subject: Re: substitution weirdness

On Fri, 30 May 2003 06:58:35 +0900
Ian Macdonald <ian@caliban.org> wrote:

<snip> 
> irb(main):119:0> foo = "'123"
> => "'123"
> irb(main):120:0> foo.gsub(/'/, "\\'")
> => "123123"
> 
> Why does the apostrophe get replaced with a copy of the text that
> follows it?
<snip> 

\' has special meaning ("after the match", iirc, which makes sense here).
A string "" requires you to escape \, as \\, so:

   "\\'"  => \'   => after-the-match substitution

Try:

   foo.gsub /'/, "\\\\'"   => "\\'123"

(Remember that "\\'" is \', because \ is escaped.)  This double-escapes
the backslash for the results you want.  (Try printing the result when
you get it.)

hth,

-- 
Ryan Pavlik <rpav@users.sf.net>

"Spinal hazards *are* hazardous..." - 8BT