From: Warren Brown <wkb@...>
Date: 2003-07-24T04:28:34+09:00
Subject: Re: String substitution without RegEx

Andreas,

> Exactly. The only solutions I can think of:
> 1) use regex_escape() for the string that should
>    be replaced, and remove backreferences in the
>    replacement string manually
> 2) do it char by char, like in C.

    How about using the block form of String#gsub in combination with
Regexp.escape:

irb(main):001:0> "foo.bar".gsub(Regexp.escape('.')) { '.\1' }
=> "foo.\\1bar"

    This eliminates the problems with backreferences in the replacement
string.


    I hope this helps!

    - Warren Brown