# Redefining word boundaries? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [June 17, 2007, 3:12am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/redefining-word-boundaries/107042 "2007-06-17T03:12:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jmb-d](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/bc8723/32.png) [@jmb-d](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jmb-d)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2007, 3:12am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/redefining-word-boundaries/107042/1 "2007-06-17T03:12:16Z")
Is it possible to redefine (temporarily) the meaning of \b in RegExp situations? Here’s the scenario: I’ve got some data that looks something like, “ABCD.E”, which I stuff into an array as I encounter each new instance. Eventually, I will join(", ") these together having surrounded each of them with single quotes, for use in an SQL “IN (…)” clause. At first, I tried doing this with gsub(/\b/, “’”), but found out the hard way that the period was wreaking havoc with my intended results, and I got this: ‘ABCD’.‘E’ instead. My next attempt was to do it by hand, like this: gsub(/^/, “’”).gsub(/ $/, “’”). This worked, but seems a bit like a hack. So my question is whether there’s any way to temporarily declare that a period is NOT to be considered a word boundary. Thanks, in advance, jmb-d ---
**Author:** ![jmb-d](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/bc8723/32.png) [@jmb-d](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jmb-d)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2007, 6:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/redefining-word-boundaries/107042/2 "2007-06-17T06:05:26Z")
On 6/17/07, jmb-d [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > My next attempt was to do it by hand, like this: gsub(/^/, “'”).gsub(/ > $/, “'”). This worked, but seems a bit like a hack. Does this give you the proper format? arr = [“ABCD.E”,“FGHI.J”,“KLMN.O”] puts arr.map{|x|“‘#{x}’”}.join(“,”) Harry – A Look into Japanese Ruby List in English [http://www.kakueki.com/](http://www.kakueki.com/) ---
**Author:** ![jmb-d](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/bc8723/32.png) [@jmb-d](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jmb-d)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2007, 7:45am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/redefining-word-boundaries/107042/3 "2007-06-17T07:45:33Z")
On Jun 16, 9:06 pm, jmb-d [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Is it possible to redefine (temporarily) the meaning of \b in RegExp > situations? I think the only way to do this would be to redefine all the circumstances in which a \b could occur yourself. For instance the 6 cases that I can think of are: ^\w, \W\w, \s\w, \w$, \w\W, \w\s. This is a pain as you can see here I’ve done four and it’s very ugly: > “ABCD.E foo FG.HI”.gsub(/^(\w)/, “'\1”).gsub(/(\w)$/, “\1’”).gsub(/(\w)(\s)/, “\1’\2”).gsub(/(\s)(\w)/, “\1’\2”) > =\> “‘ABCD.E’ ‘foo’ ‘FG.HI’” Alternatively you could pre and post process by replacing “.” with something that doesn’t break the boundary “zyzyzy” and then replace back with “.” when you’re done inserting the ticks: > “ABCD.E foo FG.HI”.gsub(/./, “zyzyzy”).gsub(/\b/, “'”).gsub(/zyzyzy/, “.”) > =\> “‘ABCD.E’ ‘foo’ ‘FG.HI’” Neither are very nice solutions. - Byron ---
**Author:** ![jmb-d](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/bc8723/32.png) [@jmb-d](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jmb-d)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2007, 2:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/redefining-word-boundaries/107042/4 "2007-06-18T14:35:58Z")
On Jun 17, 12:03 am, “Harry K.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Does this give you the proper format? > > arr = [“ABCD.E”,“FGHI.J”,“KLMN.O”] > puts arr.map{|x|“‘#{x}’”}.join(“,”) Harry – Yes, that’s the result I’m looking for. Thanks!