Pattern Matching

Matching operator

• Find a matching string
  
• //
• /reg-expr/

• Operates on $_ by default
• Can be bound to another variable using =~
• Returns the position of the matching substring, or nil if it's not found
  

if myString =~ /apple/  # Search for "apple" in myString
  ...
end

Substitution

myString.sub(/apple/, 'orange')    # Replace the first occurrence of "apple" with "orange"
myString.gsub(/apple/, 'orange')   # Replace every occurrence