Convert Ruby string to *nix filename-compatible string
By your specifications, you could accomplish this with a regex replacement. This regex will match all characters other than basic letters and digits:
s/[^\w\s_-]+//gThis will remove any extra whitespace in between words, as shown in your examples:
s/(^|\b\s)\s+($|\s?\b)/\\1\\2/gAnd lastly, replace the remaining spaces with underscores:
s/\s+/_/gHere it is in Ruby:
def friendly_filename(filename) filename.gsub(/[^\w\s_-]+/, '') .gsub(/(^|\b\s)\s+($|\s?\b)/, '\\1\\2') .gsub(/\s+/, '_')end
First, I see that it was asked purely in ruby, and second that it's not the same purpose (*nix filename compatible), but if you are using Rails, there is a method called parameterize that should help.
In rails console:
"Here's my string!".parameterize => "here-s-my-string""* is an asterisk, you see".parameterize => "is-an-asterisk-you-see"I think that parameterize, as being compliant with URL specifications, may work as well with filenames :)
You can see more about here:http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveSupport/Inflector.html#method-i-parameterize
There's also a whole lot of another helpful methods.