# Gsub all character except alphanum and character "&'

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gsub-all-character-except-alphanum-and-character/143848>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [July 23, 2008, 8:54am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gsub-all-character-except-alphanum-and-character/143848 "2008-07-23T08:54:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sgudibanda](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/a9adbd/32.png) [@sgudibanda](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sgudibanda)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 8:54am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gsub-all-character-except-alphanum-and-character/143848/1 "2008-07-23T08:54:15Z")

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Hi,

I want to replace all the special characters in my string except ‘&’  
with ‘-’. How do i do that?

I am currently using  
gsub(/[^[:alnum:]]/,’-’)

But how do i say except ‘&’?

Please suggest.

Regards,

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sgudibanda](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/a9adbd/32.png) [@sgudibanda](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/sgudibanda)\
**Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 6:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gsub-all-character-except-alphanum-and-character/143848/2 "2008-07-23T18:16:12Z")

</div>

Try:

```
gsub(/[^[:alnum:]&]/,'-')
```