Removing spaces between single characters with regual expression

ruby-talk
1

'A B C' -> 'ABC'
'AB C' -> 'AB C' (no change)
'Teddy Bear A B' -> 'Teddy Bear AB'

irb(main):005:0> s = 'A long cat and a quick mouse met o j simpson on
the t c p stack'
=> "A long cat and a quick mouse met o j simpson on the t c p stack"

irb(main):006:0> s.gsub( /\b([a-z]) (?=[a-z]\b)/i, '\\1' )
=> "A long cat and a quick mouse met oj simpson on the tcp stack"

···

From: ciapecki [mailto:ciapecki@gmail.com]

2

Thanks Gavin for your solution

irb(main):005:0> s = 'A long cat and a quick mouse met o j simpson on
the t c p stack'
=> "A long cat and a quick mouse met o j simpson on the t c p stack"

irb(main):006:0> s.gsub( /\b([a-z]) (?=[a-z]\b)/i, '\\1' )
=> "A long cat and a quick mouse met oj simpson on the tcp stack"

this is exactly what I need.
Is it possible to rewrite it without using lookahead (?=subexp) ?

chris

3

irb(main):006:0> s.gsub( /\b([a-z]) (?=[a-z]\b)/i, '\\1' )
=> "A long cat and a quick mouse met oj simpson on the tcp stack"

what about to add some additional characters like '&' to work as
characters?
to make following possible:
"a b & c de" => "ab&c de"

chris