Method: String#tr

Defined in:
string.c

#tr(selector, replacements) ⇒ Object

Returns a copy of self with each character specified by string selector translated to the corresponding character in string replacements. The correspondence is positional:

  • Each occurrence of the first character specified by selector is translated to the first character in replacements.

  • Each occurrence of the second character specified by selector is translated to the second character in replacements.

  • And so on.

Example:

'hello'.tr('el', 'ip') #=> "hippo"

If replacements is shorter than selector, it is implicitly padded with its own last character:

'hello'.tr('aeiou', '-')   # => "h-ll-"
'hello'.tr('aeiou', 'AA-') # => "hAll-"

Arguments selector and replacements must be valid character selectors (see Character Selectors), and may use any of its valid forms, including negation, ranges, and escaping:

# Negation.
'hello'.tr('^aeiou', '-') # => "-e--o"
# Ranges.
'ibm'.tr('b-z', 'a-z') # => "hal"
# Escapes.
'hel^lo'.tr('\^aeiou', '-')     # => "h-l-l-"    # Escaped leading caret.
'i-b-m'.tr('b\-z', 'a-z')       # => "ibabm"     # Escaped embedded hyphen.
'foo\\bar'.tr('ab\\', 'XYZ')    # => "fooZYXr"   # Escaped backslash.


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# File 'string.c', line 8654

static VALUE
rb_str_tr(VALUE str, VALUE src, VALUE repl)
{
    str = str_duplicate(rb_cString, str);
    tr_trans(str, src, repl, 0);
    return str;
}