# Gsub jocks - Do you have an example that does this? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [September 5, 2008, 3:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gsub-jocks-do-you-have-an-example-that-does-this/147793 "2008-09-05T15:15:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2008, 3:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gsub-jocks-do-you-have-an-example-that-does-this/147793/1 "2008-09-05T15:15:07Z")
I know I’ve been lazy not learning RegExp and gsub but I simply never use it except for this one time. I’ll be importing .csv records and sometimes they’ll be dirty with characters like ( # " ) and I’d like to change these to a space. I would be grateful for a simple example? Thank you, Kathleen ---
**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2008, 3:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gsub-jocks-do-you-have-an-example-that-does-this/147793/2 "2008-09-05T15:36:53Z")
On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 9:14 AM, removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)wrote: > I know I’ve been lazy not learning RegExp and gsub but I simply never > use it except for this one time. > I’ll be importing .csv records and sometimes they’ll be dirty with > characters like ( # " ) and I’d like to change these to a space. > I would be grateful for a simple example? > Thank you, > Kathleen line.gsub!(/[#"]/,’ ') the start / and end / define the regex. [#"] means 'match any one of the following: # and " ’ the gsub-bang (gsub!) method will change the contents of the line variable. If you’re more cautious do clean\_line = line.gsub(…) – Tim