From: Andreas Schwarz <usenet@...>
Date: 2003-07-23T20:44:04+09:00
Subject: Re: String substitution without RegEx

Robert Klemme wrote:
> 
> "Andreas Schwarz" <usenet@andreas-s.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:slrnbhr0jv.d34.usenet@home.andreas-s.net...
>> I wanted to do a simple string substitution, and was surprised to see
>> that there isn't such a method in ruby. I can't use String::(g)sub,
>> because the substitution mustn't be influenced by special chars or
>> backreferences in the pattern and replacement strings. Of course I could
>> write functions to escape regex special chars in the pattern and
>> backreferences in the replacement string, but this is about the ugliest
>> solution I can think of.
> 
> Where's the problem?
> 
> irb(main):004:0> "foo.bar".gsub '.', "*"
> (irb):4: warning: string pattern instead of regexp; metacharacters no
> longer eff
> ective
> "foo*bar"

irb(main):001:0> "foo.bar".gsub '.', "*"
=> "*******"


> Or you use Regexp.escape as others already have pointed out:
> 
> irb(main):017:0* "foo.bar".gsub( /#{Regexp.escape(".")}/, "*" )
> "foo*bar"

irb(main):007:0> "foo.bar".gsub( /#{Regexp.escape(".")}/, "\\1")
=> "foobar"


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