# Newbie regular expression question **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [April 7, 2010, 11:44am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-regular-expression-question/186448 "2010-04-07T11:44:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![hemantborole](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b782af/32.png) [@hemantborole](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hemantborole)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 11:44am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-regular-expression-question/186448/1 "2010-04-07T11:44:49Z")
Hello champs, I am having an string and i want all extra characters to be removed from that string except + and . How to write a regular expression for it… Currently i am trying it like this as word.sub(/[\_-:\/]/, “”)… But its not working… I can do it like this as well:- word.sub(/[\W]/, “”) but this will replace all characters even also + and . ---
**Author:** ![hemantborole](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b782af/32.png) [@hemantborole](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hemantborole)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 11:51am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-regular-expression-question/186448/2 "2010-04-07T11:51:38Z")
Give sample input string and output string… ---
**Author:** ![hemantborole](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b782af/32.png) [@hemantborole](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hemantborole)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 11:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-regular-expression-question/186448/3 "2010-04-07T11:58:18Z")
Le 07/04/2010 11:44, Hemant B. a écrit : > Hello champs, > > I am having an string and i want all extra characters to be removed from > that string except + and . > How to write a regular expression for it… Currently i am trying it like > this as word.sub(/[\_-:\/]/, “”)… But its not working… > > I can do it like this as well:- word.sub(/[\W]/, “”) but this will > replace all characters even also + and . This seems to be what you need : str = “ABCD EF + (GH\_IJ).klm \_ ^^z” str.gsub(/[^\w+.]|\_/i, ‘’) =\> “ABCDEF+GHIJ.klmz” – Aurélien AMILIN ---
**Author:** ![hemantborole](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b782af/32.png) [@hemantborole](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hemantborole)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 12:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-regular-expression-question/186448/4 "2010-04-07T12:00:39Z")
On 7 April 2010 10:44, Hemant B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I am having an string and i want all extra characters to be removed from > that string except + and . word.gsub(/[^+.]/, “”) ---
**Author:** ![hemantborole](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b782af/32.png) [@hemantborole](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hemantborole)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 11:55am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-regular-expression-question/186448/5 "2010-04-07T11:55:22Z")
Siddick E. wrote: > Give sample input string and output string… Hey thanks for such a quick reply… Ok lets suppose, Input:- :removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid Output should be as only, removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid Means that i want to remove all extra chars except . and +… Hope u got it now… ---
**Author:** ![hemantborole](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b782af/32.png) [@hemantborole](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hemantborole)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 12:02pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-regular-expression-question/186448/6 "2010-04-07T12:02:59Z")
The question or the example isn’t clear enough. But for the example you gave, this works = a.sub(/[\s\_]/,’’) Thanks & Regards, Dhruva S… ---
**Author:** ![hemantborole](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b782af/32.png) [@hemantborole](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hemantborole)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 12:02pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-regular-expression-question/186448/7 "2010-04-07T12:02:24Z")
On 7 April 2010 10:58, Michael P. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > On 7 April 2010 10:44, Hemant B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > I am having an string and i want all extra characters to be removed from > > that string except + and . > > word.gsub(/[^+.]/, “”) oh… if you want to keep alphanumeric characters: word.gsub(/[^a-zA-Z0-9+.]/, “”) ---
**Author:** ![hemantborole](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/b782af/32.png) [@hemantborole](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/hemantborole)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 12:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/newbie-regular-expression-question/186448/8 "2010-04-07T12:09:44Z")
AMILIN Aurélien wrote: > Le 07/04/2010 11:44, Hemant B. a �crit : > > > Hello champs, > > > > I am having an string and i want all extra characters to be removed from > > that string except + and . > > How to write a regular expression for it… Currently i am trying it like > > this as word.sub(/[\_-:\/]/, “”)… But its not working… > > > > I can do it like this as well:- word.sub(/[\W]/, “”) but this will > > replace all characters even also + and . > > This seems to be what you need : > > str = “ABCD EF + (GH\_IJ).klm \_ ^^z” > str.gsub(/[^\w+.]|\_/i, ‘’) > =\> “ABCDEF+GHIJ.klmz” > > – > Aur�lien AMILIN Thanks guyz, this worked like a charm… Thanks to all of you who replies so quickly …