CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby
Erik Aasland
Erik Aasland

Reputation: 167

Could someone please explain the following Ruby code to me in detail?

I nearly had this challenge on Code Wars in the bag but, I blew it because my knowledge of gsub is sub-par at best. While I roughly understand the concept of gsub, I would like a more thorough understanding of it (different ways you can use it could be helpful to my development) as well as a bit by bit explanation of the code below.

def autocorrect(input)
  input.gsub(/\b(you+|u)\b/i, 'your sister')
end

Upvotes: 0

Views: 97

Answers (1)

bkunzi01
bkunzi01

Reputation: 4561

You're taking any string that contains a match to the regular expression shown and replacing it with the second parameter which is in this case, "your sister". Regular expressions are a bit tricky in Ruby but essentially that regular expression is saying:

    /   #starts the reg exp
    \b  #any word boundary
    (you+|u)   #the word 'you' with one or more of the letter 'u' added after it (so youuuuu would fit) or just the letter 'u' alone with a 'y' or 'o'... the pipe symbol is an or statement in reg-exp. taking one or the other for a match.  
    \b  #again finishing a word boundary
    /   #closes the expression.

Checkout Rubular for tips. http://rubular.com/

Upvotes: 1

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