From: dblack@...
Date: 2003-11-12T07:29:17+09:00
Subject: Re: Backslash substitution question

Hi --

On Wed, 12 Nov 2003, Ron Coutts wrote:

> I'm having trouble with backslashes and I don't know what is wrong.  I
> can't seem to write and expression that will evaluate to a string
> containing a single backslash character as in "\".  It seems that "\\"
> in Ruby evaluates to "\\" not to "\" as I would expect.  Below are a few
> things I've tried.  If anyone could send back a quick answer it would be
> much appreciated.
>
> res = "c:/foo/bar".gsub(/\//, "\\")   # -> c:\\foo\\bar
> res = "c:/foo/bar".gsub(/\//, '\\')   # -> c:\\foo\\bar
> #res = "c:/foo/bar".gsub(/\//, "\")   # -> syntax error - unterminated
> string meets end of file
> #res = "c:/foo/bar".gsub(/\//, '\')   # -> syntax error - unterminated
> string meets end of file
> res = "c:/foo/bar".gsub(/\//) { "\\"} # -> c:\\foo\\bar

Are you doing this in irb?  If so, you'll get a quoted and escaped
version of the new string which shows you \\ where the string actually
has \

  irb(main):005:0> res = "c:/foo/bar".gsub(/\//, "\\")
  => "c:\\foo\\bar"
  irb(main):006:0> puts res
  c:\foo\bar
  irb(main):007:0> res.size
  => 10


David

-- 
David Alan Black
home: dblack@wobblini.net        # New email address
work: blackdav@shu.edu
Web:  http://pirate.shu.edu/~blackdav