to_regexp¶ ↑

Basically a safe way to convert strings to regexps (with options).

str = "/finalis(é)/im"
old_way = eval(str)     # not safe
new_way = str.to_regexp # provided by this gem
old_way == new_way      # true

You can also treat strings as literal regexps. These two are equivalent:

'/foo/'.to_regexp                                       #=> /foo/
'foo'.to_regexp(:literal => true)                       #=> /foo/

If you need case insensitivity and you’re using :literal, pass options like :ignore_case. These two are equivalent:

'/foo/i'.to_regexp                                      #=> /foo/i
'foo'.to_regexp(:literal => true, :ignore_case => true) #=> /foo/i

You can get the options passed to Regexp.new with #as_regexp:

'/foo/'.to_regexp == Regexp.new('/foo/'.as_regexp) # true

Finally, you can be more lazy using :detect:

'foo'.to_regexp(detect: true)     #=> /foo/
'foo\b'.to_regexp(detect: true)   #=> %r{foo\\b}
'/foo\b/'.to_regexp(detect: true) #=> %r{foo\b}
'foo\b/'.to_regexp(detect: true)  #=> %r{foo\\b/}

to_regexp

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to_regexp¶ ↑