From: "Kurt M. Dresner" <kdresner@...>
Date: 2003-07-22T05:13:38+09:00
Subject: Re: gsub(/\s*$/, "") doubling string

I don't know what the problem is, but you should probably be using
gsub(/\s+$/,'') anyway :o)

-Kurt

On Tue, Jul 22, 2003 at 03:36:56AM +0900, Paul Rubel wrote:
> Hello,
>  I recently downloaded ruby 1.8.0 p3, (2003-06-23) [i686-linux], and
> tried it on some code that chopped trailing spaces from a string using
> gsub(/\s*$/, ""). I'm seeing some odd behavior and was hoping someone
> could shed some light on what's happening. 
> 
>  In 1.6.7 the code above did what I expected. However, in 1.8.0p3 it
> seems to double the string if the string doesn't end in a space.
> 
> #does what I expected in 1.6 and 1.8
> irb(main):004:0> " TEST   ".gsub(/\s*$/, "")
> => " TEST"
> 
> # very odd (at least to me) in 1.8.0p3
> irb(main):005:0> " TEST   .".gsub(/\s*$/, "")
> => " TEST   . TEST   ." 
> 
>  Where does this repeat come from? If I change the * to a + it fixes my
> problem but I was hoping someone could help explain why it's happening.
> 
>  While looking into this I've noticed that there seems to be something
> special about 2 repeats. 
> 
> irb(main):002:0> "  string       ".gsub(/\s*$/, 'P')
> "  stringPP"
> 
>  Regardless of how many trailing spaces I add two Ps are always
> appended. It seems that one matches all the spaces and then one matches
> the zero length string that's the end itself since a string without
> trailing spaces puts in one P. Is the $ getting used twice in this
> match?
> 
>  I'd appreciate any explanations or help.
>    thank you,
>      Paul
> 
>======= End of Original Message =======<