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Using Ruby, how can I take a string and insert pipes between the words?

Answer 1

+7 A:

Always nice to be able to answer not using a regex :-)

your_string.split(" ").join("|")

should do it.

DanSingerman 2010-01-13 17:35:55

Use split(/[^\w]+/).join("|") if you want all non-word characters stripped out."birthday cake: my favorite".split(/[^\w]+/).join("|") #=> "birthday|cake|my|favorite"EDIT: Ha, just saw your comment about not using a regex. Makes my comment a little ironic.

Adam Stegman 2010-01-13 17:51:20

Bonus points for handling multiple spaces out of the box!

jerhinesmith 2010-01-13 19:11:27

Answer 2

+7 A:

"birthday cake is my favorite".gsub(" ", "|")

Trevor 2010-01-13 17:36:45

you might want `.gsub(/ +/,"|")` to combine multiple spaces into one pipe char.

AShelly 2010-01-13 18:05:03

I'd use \s+ - using a literal blank for whitespace in a regex bothers me for some reason.

klochner 2010-01-13 18:54:27

Answer 3

+5 A:

This is precisely what String#tr (and String#tr_s) is for:

# Look, Ma! No Regexp!
'birthday cake is my     favorite'.tr_s(' ', '|')
# => "birthday|cake|is|my|favorite"

I admit, the method names aren't the most intuitive. (Unless you are a Mac OSX, Unix, Linux, Cygwin or MinGW user, of course, in which case tr and tr -s will be part of your daily arsenal.)

Jörg W Mittag 2010-01-13 19:50:31

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Using Ruby, how can I take a string and insert pipes between the words?

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