Escape spaces in a linux pathname with Ruby gsub

ruby gsub
user1074981 picture user1074981 · Oct 14, 2013 · Viewed 9.6k times · Source

I am trying to escape the spaces in a Linux path. However, whenever I try to escape my backslash I end up with a double slash.

Example path:

/mnt/drive/site/usa/1201 East/1201 East Invoice.pdf

So that I can use this in Linux I want to escape it as:

/mnt/drive/site/usa/1201\ East/1201\ East\ Invoice.pdf

So I'm trying this:

backup_item.gsub("\s", "\\\s")

But I get an unexpected output of 

/mnt/drive/site/usa/1201\\ East/1201\\ East\\ Invoice.pdf

Answer

mdesantis picture mdesantis · Oct 14, 2013

Stefan is right; I just want to point out that if you have to escape strings for shell use you should check Shellwords::shellescape:

require 'shellwords'

puts Shellwords.shellescape "/mnt/drive/site/usa/1201 East/1201 East Invoice.pdf"
# prints /mnt/drive/site/usa/1201\ East/1201\ East\ Invoice.pdf

# or

puts "/mnt/drive/site/usa/1201 East/1201 East Invoice.pdf".shellescape
# prints /mnt/drive/site/usa/1201\ East/1201\ East\ Invoice.pdf

# or (as reported by @hagello)
puts shellwords.escape "/mnt/drive/site/usa/1201 East/1201 East Invoice.pdf"
# prints /mnt/drive/site/usa/1201\ East/1201\ East\ Invoice.pdf

Related questions

How to use ruby gsub Regexp with many matches?

I have csv file contents having double quotes inside quoted text test,first,line,"you are a "kind" man",thanks again,second,li,"my "boss" is you",good I need to replace every double quote not preceded or succeeded by …

Read More
Ruby multiple string replacement

str = "Hello☺ World☹" Expected output is: "Hello:) World:(" I can do this: str.gsub("☺", ":)").gsub("☹", ":(") Is there any other way so that I can do this in a single function call?. Something like: str.gsub(['s1', 's2'], ['r1…

Read More
using gsub in ruby strings correctly

I have this expression: channelName = rhash["Channel"].gsub("'", " ") it works fine. However, I can only substitute 1 character with it. I want to add a few more characters to substitue. So I tried the following: channelName = rhash["Channel"].gsub(/[':;] /, " ") …

Read More