# N00b string replace

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/n00b-string-replace/136288>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [April 30, 2008, 1:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/n00b-string-replace/136288 "2008-04-30T13:26:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 1:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/n00b-string-replace/136288/1 "2008-04-30T13:26:01Z")

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Hi I’m triying to substitute any ocurrences of ’ in a string by ’

Here’s a bit of testing I made in irb which wtf’s me:

irb(main):002:0\> st = “un ’ monton ’ de ’ apostrofes '”  
=\> “un ’ monton ’ de ’ apostrofes '”  
irb(main):003:0\> sst = st.gsub(/’/,"’")  
=\> “un ’ monton ’ de ’ apostrofes '”

ok substitute ’ by ’ 😛 I don’t know why interpeter interpret ’ as  
’ when in a double-quoted string contex but I’m a newbie so sure I’m  
wrong

irb(main):004:0\> sst = st.gsub(/’/,"\’")  
=\> “un monton ’ de ’ apostrofes ’ monton de ’ apostrofes ’ de  
apostrofes ’ apostrofes "  
irb(main):005:0\> sst = st.gsub(/’/,”\’")  
=\> "un monton ’ de ’ apostrofes ’ monton de ’ apostrofes ’ de  
apostrofes ’ apostrofes "

This seems to be substitute ’ by “rest of string from ocurrence”  
regardless of scape chars

Totally dazzed and desperate I tried with another backslash… who  
cares … and get this

irb(main):006:0\> sst = st.gsub(/’/,"\\’")  
=\> “un \’ monton \’ de \’ apostrofes \’”

How do I get “un ’ monton ’ de ’ apostrofes '” from “un ’ monton ’  
de ’ apostrofes '”? using regex?

Thanks

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 3:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/n00b-string-replace/136288/2 "2008-04-30T15:10:48Z")

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Hi,

On Apr 30, 12:22 pm, removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid wrote:

> How do I get “un ’ monton ’ de ’ apostrofes '” from “un ’ monton ’  
> de ’ apostrofes '”? using regex?

Like this:

> > st = “un ’ monton ’ de ’ apostrofes '”  
> > =\> “un ’ monton ’ de ’ apostrofes '”
> 
> > st.gsub(/’/, “\\’”)  
> > =\> “un \’ monton \’ de \’ apostrofes \’”

It just displays with \ in there because it needs to escape the   
itself when displaying it. Any manipulations you need to do on the  
actual string object will only see a single ‘’ character rather than  
a double.

> > s = “’”  
> > =\> “’”
> 
> > s.gsub!(/’/, “\\’”)  
> > =\> “\’”
> 
> > s.length  
> > =\> 2
> 
> > s[0].chr  
> > =\> “\”
> 
> > s[1].chr  
> > =\> “’”

Jon

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\
**Post date:** [May 3, 2008, 5:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/n00b-string-replace/136288/3 "2008-05-03T17:36:15Z")

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[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> irb(main):003:0\> sst = st.gsub(/'/,“'”)

You can really confuse the heck out of yourself this way. There are two  
problems:

(1) Backslashes must be escaped in a double-quoted string.

(2) gsub has special behavior unlike anything else in Ruby: backslashes  
are unescaped in the second parameter, regardless of the quoting.

So, if you want one backslash to be substituted, and if you insist on  
double-quoting, you have to type _four_ backslashes:

irb(main):003:0\> puts “hello”.gsub(“e”,“\\”)  
h\llo

For the workaround, check this recent thread:

\<[http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse\_thread/thread/d8f4](http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse_thread/thread/d8f4)  
74e7f2959585/9cadabc099a27925?lnk=st&q=#9cadabc099a27925\>

m.