Problem with Regular Expression

I’m replacing a string using:
xmlString.gsub!(/:#{tagName}>#{oldValue}<//i,":" + tagName + “>” +
value + “</”)

It works perfectly but… if oldValue contains the character +, it
doesn’t work.

Do you know how to solve this?

Thanks a lot…

On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 01:54:24AM +0900, Mario R. wrote:

I’m replacing a string using:
xmlString.gsub!(/:#{tagName}>#{oldValue}<//i,":" + tagName + “>” +
value + “</”)

It works perfectly but… if oldValue contains the character +, it
doesn’t work.

Do you know how to solve this?

Use Regexp.escape():

xmlString.gsub!(/:#{tagName}>#{Regexp.escape(oldValue)}<//i,":" +
tagName + “>” +
value + “</”)

Le 19 mai à 18:54, Mario R. a écrit :

I’m replacing a string using:
xmlString.gsub!(/:#{tagName}>#{oldValue}<//i,":" + tagName + “>” +
value + “</”)

It works perfectly but… if oldValue contains the character +, it
doesn’t work.

Do you know how to solve this?

When you interpolate strings into a regexp, the special chars are taken
as part of the regexp (meaning your ‘+’ means one or more of the
expression before). If you want to match literals, use Regexp.escape :

xmlString.gsub!(/:#{Regexp.escape(tagName)}>#{Regexp.escape(oldValue)}<//i

Regexp.escape(“abc+”)
=> “abc\+”

Regexp.escape(“abc[]+”)
=> “abc\[\]\+”

Fred

F. Senault wrote:

Le 19 mai � 18:54, Mario R. a �crit :

Yep It works!!!

Thank you very much.

On May 19, 12:54 pm, Mario R. [email protected] wrote:

I’m replacing a string using:
xmlString.gsub!(/:#{tagName}>#{oldValue}<//i,“:” + tagName + “>” +
value + “</”)

In general, it’s not a good idea to parse XML with regular
expressions. They tend to be more fragile. What happens if there is an
attribute on the tag? Extra spaces around the brackets? The expression
breaks.

If you want something more robust, use an XML parser. As a bonus, your
code will also be more readable.

doc = Nokogiri::XML(xmlString)
doc.xpath(“//mytag”).each do |tag|
tag.content = value
end

– Mark

(I’m surprised Aaron didn’t respond with such an example!)