Replace string with regex and replace if some words match with array

Question

I have a string:

str = "John: hey, what's your name?.. :haha \n Stella: :foo :xx: my name is ... stella :xx:"

I want to replace all smilies in the list ary = [":haha", ":xx:", ":foo", ":bar"] and special characters (except space) with (.*) so that it becomes like this:

John(.*) hey(.*) what(.*)s your name(.*) Stella(.*) my name is (.*) stella (.*)

enter image description here

I tried this:

str.gsub(Regexp.new("^#{ary.join('|')}$")) { |w| "(.*)" }.gsub( /[\W ]+/, "(.*)")
# => "John(.*)hey(.*)what(.*)s(.*)your(.*)name(.*)haha(.*)Stella(.*)my(.*)name(.*)is(.*)stella(.*)"

Problem:

Space still replace

` ` is being replaced because you are providing it in the pattern: [\W ]. Change it to [^\w\s]+ — hjpotter92
– hjpotter92, Commented Apr 18, 2015 at 21:55
@CarySwoveland make sure you can see that in my question, I have include with text too, not only an image. — itx
– itx, Commented Apr 19, 2015 at 4:21

Wiktor Stribiżew · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-18 22:30:03Z

1

I have tried creating a more generic approach, but finally came up with a 3-step approach. Since it seems impossible to filter out multiple consecutive (.*), I am adding a post-process with the 3rd gsub:

str = "John: hey, what's your name?.. :haha \n Stella: :foo :xx: my name is ... stella :xx:"
ary = [":haha", ":xx:", ":foo", ":bar"]
print str.gsub(Regexp.new("#{ary.join('|')}")) { |w| "(.*)" }.gsub( /(?>\(\.\*\)|[^\w ]+)/, "(.*)").gsub(/\(\.\*\)(?>\s*\(\.\*\))*/,"(.*)")

Output of a sample program:

John(.*) hey(.*) what(.*)s your name(.*) Stella(.*) my name is (.*) stella (.*)

edited Apr 18, 2015 at 22:30

answered Apr 18, 2015 at 22:21

Wiktor Stribiżew

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2 Comments

rails_id Over a year ago

@stribizhev : Also use Regexp.escape, if some word in array has special character,

str.gsub(Regexp.new(ary.map { |x| Regexp.escape(x) }.join('|'))) { |w| "(.*)" }.gsub( /(?>\(\.\*\)|[^\w ]+)/, "(.*)").gsub(/\(\.\*\)(?>\s*\(\.\*\))*/,"(.*)")

Wiktor Stribiżew Over a year ago

@anonymousxxx: a very good hint, since we do not know what the actual smilie list looks like. I assumed they all look like a colon plus letters.

Cary Swoveland · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-18 23:14:19Z

0

You can do it like so:

s = "John: hey, what's your name?.. :haha \n Stella: :foo :xx: my name is ... stella :xx:"

r = /\?\.\. :haha \n|: :foo :xx:|\.\.\.|:xx:|[^\w ]/

s.gsub(r,'(.*)')
  #=> "John(.*) hey(.*) what(.*)s your name(.*) Stella(.*) my name is (.*) stella (.*)"

The only tricky bit concerns the order of the 'or' elements in the regex . In particular, : cannot be replaced before three other strings are replaced.

edited Apr 18, 2015 at 23:14

answered Apr 18, 2015 at 22:36

Cary Swoveland

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2 Comments

Wiktor Stribiżew Over a year ago

And now add .. to the input string, what will you get? Correct, it won't get converted to (.*). You also do not take into account the list of known smilies: they might appear in different contexts.

Cary Swoveland Over a year ago

@stribizhev, you're right. I confess that I didn't read the entire question (I guess I was mesmerized by the pretty pictures). I made some changes to address the points your made. I assume that if .. were added it should be replaced by (.*)(.*), but if it (or any number of consecutive periods) should just be just (.*) that's an easy change.

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