How do can I remove text from a string in Ruby when there are multiple instances of the text in the string

Question

An example of the string:

"6 red cables, 4 white cables, 9 blue cables"

I want to remove "cables" so that it reads

"6 red, 4 white, 9 blue"

I looked at the slice and sub methods, but they only remove the first instance of "cables". Can someone point me in the right direction?

call gsub("cables", "") on your string. or, more general, make a function like def my_fun(s, x); s.gsub(x, ''); end — user6183958
– user6183958, Commented Apr 12, 2016 at 21:57

the Tin Man · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-12 23:06:34Z

7

You can use String#gsub:

2.2.0 :003 > "6 red cables, 4 white cables, 9 blue cables".gsub(" cables", "")
 => "6 red, 4 white, 9 blue"

edited Apr 12, 2016 at 23:06

the Tin Man

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answered Apr 12, 2016 at 21:55

Igor Pantović

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Comments

Radmation · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-13 18:28:35Z

-1

Reference (compares sub vs gsub): http://www.dotnetperls.com/sub-ruby

Answer

cleand_value = "6 red cables, 4 white cables, 9 blue cables".gsub("cables", '') 
 Output "6 red , 4 white , 9 blue "

Explanation:

value = "abc abc"
# Gsub replaces all instances.
value = value.gsub("abc", "---")
puts value

Output

--- ---

You then can get rid of all the white spaces after the commas the same way.

cleaner_value = cleaned_value.gsub(", ", ",") #replaces all instances
output "6 red, 4 white, 9 blue"

Or use the other solutions and do

cleand_value = "6 red cables, 4 white cables, 9 blue cables".gsub(" cables", '') #notice the space before cables. May cause problems unless you know exactly the input

edited Apr 13, 2016 at 18:28

answered Apr 12, 2016 at 21:57

Radmation

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3 Comments

Cary Swoveland Over a year ago

This returns "6 red , 4 white , 9 blue ". To remove those spaces you need to change "cables" to " cables", but then you have @Igor's earlier solution.

the Tin Man Over a year ago

Please don't toss out code only. Explain why it's useful and what it does. Handing out code by itself is like throwing someone a fish. Explaining is like teaching them how to fish. The later is better because they'll understand what to do next time.

Radmation Over a year ago

@theTinMan I edited response. Thanks for the advice, and I like the analogy...seems familiar :D

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