# String replacing help

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/string-replacing-help/165894>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [April 19, 2009, 6:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/string-replacing-help/165894 "2009-04-19T06:59:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/54ee81/32.png) [@nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nuby2ruby)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2009, 6:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/string-replacing-help/165894/1 "2009-04-19T06:59:01Z")

</div>

I’m working with Mechanize doing some screen scraping. Because of the  
project, I have to use an older version of Mechanize for now, I’m using  
0.8.4.

The goal of what I’m trying to do is take a string and insert pipes ‘|’  
before words that are _not_ inside of .

I have:

> > template\_body.class  
> > =\> Hpricot::Elements
> 
> > template\_body.to\_html  
> > =\> “
> > 
> > ```
> > <a href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F36’;
> > document.f6.submit();” onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;”
> > title=“Select” onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return
> > true;”>HEAD \n <a
> > href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F37’; document.f6.submit();”
> > onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;” title=“Select”
> > onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return true;”>TITLE <a
> > href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F38’; document.f6.submit();”
> > onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;” title=“Select”
> > onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return true;”>“test”\n<a
> > href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F39’; document.f6.submit();”
> > onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;” title=“Select”
> > onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return true;”>BODY \n
> > <a href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F40’;
> > document.f6.submit();” onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;”
> > title=“Select” onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return
> > true;”>DIV id <a
> > href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F41’; document.f6.submit();”
> > onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;” title=“Select”
> > onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return true;”>“main-div”\n
> > <a href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F42’;
> > document.f6.submit();” onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;”
> > title=“Select” onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return
> > true;”>CSS-WITH-LINK destination <a
> > href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F43’; document.f6.submit();”
> > onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;” title=“Select”
> > onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return true;”>TO <a
> > href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F44’; document.f6.submit();”
> > onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;” title=“Select”
> > onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return true;”>:index\n
> > <a href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F45’;
> > document.f6.submit();” onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;”
> > title=“Select” onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return
> > true;”>IMAGE source <a
> > href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F46’; document.f6.submit();”
> > onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;” title=“Select”
> > onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return
> > true;”>RENDER image <a
> > href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F47’; document.f6.submit();”
> > onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;” title=“Select”
> > onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return true;”>@image\n
> > max-height <a href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F48’;
> > document.f6.submit();” onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;”
> > title=“Select” onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return
> > true;”>m-h\n
> > ```
> > ”

The words I’m trying to insert the pipe before have a non-breaking space  
tags around them. I had it working where I can iterate through  
everything and return a new string, but I end up losing all line breaks  
and non-breaking spaces using

new\_body = ‘’  
template\_body.to\_html.split("&nbsp;“).each do |el|  
el.split(”\n").each do |e|  
unless e.empty? or e =~ /\</?[^\>]\*\>/  
e = ‘|’ + e  
end  
end  
new\_body += el  
end

Any ideas?

Thanks,  
~Jeremy

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/54ee81/32.png) [@nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nuby2ruby)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2009, 7:32am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/string-replacing-help/165894/2 "2009-04-19T07:32:23Z")

</div>

On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 6:59 AM, Jeremy W.  
[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> > > template\_body.to\_html  
> > > href="javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F39’; document.f6.submit();"  
> > > document.f6.submit();" onMouseOut="window.status=‘’;"  
> > > title="Select" onMouseOver="window.status=‘Select’; return  
> > > title="Select" onMouseOver="window.status=‘Select’; return  
> > > el.split(“\n”).each do |e|  
> > > Thanks,  
> > > ~Jeremy  
> > > –  
> > > Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/).

Does this work?:

in\_a = false  
result = “”  
s.scan(/\<[^\>]+\>|[^\<]+/).each do |e|  
if e =~ /\<a/  
in\_a = true  
result \<\< e  
elsif e =~ /\</a/  
in\_a = false  
result \<\< e  
elsif !in\_a && e =~ /\A\s\*\w/  
result \<\< “|#{e}”  
else  
result \<\< e  
end  
end  
result

Andrew T.  
[http://ramblingsonrails.com](http://ramblingsonrails.com)  
[http://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewtimberlake](http://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewtimberlake)

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education” - Mark Twain

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/54ee81/32.png) [@nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nuby2ruby)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2009, 9:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/string-replacing-help/165894/3 "2009-04-19T09:59:49Z")

</div>

Jeremy W. wrote:

> The goal of what I’m trying to do is take a string and insert pipes ‘|’  
> before words that are _not_ inside of .

Yet you were not able to provide an example of the desired result?

> The words I’m trying to insert the pipe before have a non-breaking space  
> tags around them.

Based on _my_ interpretation of your description, I think this is what  
you want:

result = str.gsub(/&nbsp;([^\<]\*)&nbsp;/m, ’&nbsp;|\1&nbsp;')

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/54ee81/32.png) [@nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nuby2ruby)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2009, 11:52am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/string-replacing-help/165894/4 "2009-04-19T11:52:51Z")

</div>

7stud – wrote:

> Jeremy W. wrote:
> 
> > The goal of what I’m trying to do is take a string and insert pipes ‘|’  
> > before words that are _not_ inside of .
> 
> Yet you were not able to provide an example of the desired result?

I’ll try what you have, but here is what the desired result

HEAD  
TITLE “test”  
BODY  
DIV |id “main-div”  
CSS-WITH-LINK |destination TO :index  
IMAGE |source RENDER |image @image

I’m getting…

HEAD

TITLE  
“test”  
BODY

DIV  
|id  
“main-div”  
CSS-WITH-LINK  
|destination  
TO  
:index

```
  IMAGE

```

|source  
RENDER  
|image  
@image

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/54ee81/32.png) [@nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nuby2ruby)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2009, 5:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/string-replacing-help/165894/5 "2009-04-19T17:58:11Z")

</div>

Jeremy W. wrote:

> 7stud – wrote:
> 
> > Jeremy W. wrote:
> > 
> > > The goal of what I’m trying to do is take a string and insert pipes ‘|’  
> > > before words that are _not_ inside of .
> > 
> > Yet you were not able to provide an example of the desired result?
> 
> I’ll try what you have, but here is what the desired result
> 
> HEAD  
> TITLE “test”  
> BODY  
> DIV |id “main-div”  
> CSS-WITH-LINK |destination TO :index  
> IMAGE |source RENDER |image @image

Ok. Here’s the deal. When asking these types of question, you need to  
post two things:

1. The starting string.
2. The result string.

Apparently, you want to know what regex will transform this string:

“

```
<a href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F36’;
document.f6.submit();” onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;”
title=“Select” onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return
true;”>HEAD \n <a
href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F37’; document.f6.submit();”
onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;” title=“Select”
onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return true;”>TITLE <a
href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F38’; document.f6.submit();”
onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;” title=“Select”
onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return true;”>“test”\n<a
href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F39’; document.f6.submit();”
onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;” title=“Select”
onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return true;”>BODY \n
<a href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F40’;
document.f6.submit();” onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;”
title=“Select” onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return
true;”>DIV id <a
href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F41’; document.f6.submit();”
onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;” title=“Select”
onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return true;”>“main-div”\n
<a href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F42’;
document.f6.submit();” onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;”
title=“Select” onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return
true;”>CSS-WITH-LINK destination <a
href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F43’; document.f6.submit();”
onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;” title=“Select”
onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return true;”>TO <a
href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F44’; document.f6.submit();”
onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;” title=“Select”
onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return true;”>:index\n
<a href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F45’;
document.f6.submit();” onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;”
title=“Select” onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return
true;”>IMAGE source <a
href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F46’; document.f6.submit();”
onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;” title=“Select”
onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return
true;”>RENDER image <a
href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F47’; document.f6.submit();”
onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;” title=“Select”
onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return true;”>@image\n
max-height <a href=“javascript:document.f6.SLID.value=‘F48’;
document.f6.submit();” onMouseOut=“window.status=’’;”
title=“Select” onMouseOver=“window.status=‘Select’; return
true;”>m-h\n
```
”

into this string:

“HEAD  
TITLE “test”  
BODY  
DIV |id “main-div”  
CSS-WITH-LINK |destination TO :index  
IMAGE |source RENDER |image @image”

Good luck with that.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/54ee81/32.png) [@nuby2ruby](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nuby2ruby)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2009, 10:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/string-replacing-help/165894/6 "2009-04-19T22:42:55Z")

</div>

yeah, sorry. I posted that at 3:00am after a few beers, I didn’t think  
about it until this morning.I made a few changes with your guys  
suggestions. So, let’s try this again…

Here is my method  
[http://rafb.net/p/rVurUa81.html](http://rafb.net/p/rVurUa81.html)

Here is what I am getting…  
[http://rafb.net/p/O1c03297.html](http://rafb.net/p/O1c03297.html)

Here is what I want  
[http://rafb.net/p/OmoKsi17.html](http://rafb.net/p/OmoKsi17.html)

My thought was that I would take that HTML string, and use a regexp that  
would find the text not inside any anchor tags and just add the pipe to  
it, then return that original HTML string. I want to keep all the &nbsp;  
and \n so the formatting remains the same.

At this point, if I can figure out how to place the line breaks back in  
the right place, then I may just be set.

Thanks for the help guys,

~Jeremy