I’m a fairly lousy scripter at best, but finally saw a Ruby Q. I could
manage.
That said, this probably wins the prize for “slowest, most convoluted
way of doing it”… but it’s how I think, I’m afraid…
Usage: it extends String, so foo = bar.munge
Please don’t laugh 
class String
def mangle
if self.size < 3
self
else
original = self.split(//)
first = self[0,1]
last = self[-1,1]
innards_munged = self[1,(size-2)].gsub(/[^a-zA-Z]/,
“”).shuffle!.split(//)
output = []
output << first
original.each { |l|
if l =~ /[a-zA-Z]/
output << innards_munged.pop
else
output << l
end
}
output << last
output.to_s
end
end
def shuffle!
(0…size).each { |j|
i = rand(size-j)
self[j], self[j+i] = self[j+i], self[j]
}
self
end
def munge
words = self.split(/\b/)
output = []
words.each { |w|
output << w.mangle
}
output.to_s
end
end
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