Ruby: Escaping special characters in a string - ruby

I am trying to write a method that is the same as mysqli_real_escape_string in PHP. It takes a string and escapes any 'dangerous' characters. I have looked for a method that will do this for me but I cannot find one. So I am trying to write one on my own.
This is what I have so far (I tested the pattern at Rubular.com and it worked):
# Finds the following characters and escapes them by preceding them with a backslash. Characters: ' " . * / \ -
def escape_characters_in_string(string)
pattern = %r{ (\'|\"|\.|\*|\/|\-|\\) }
string.gsub(pattern, '\\\0') # <-- Trying to take the currently found match and add a \ before it I have no idea how to do that).
end
And I am using start_string as the string I want to change, and correct_string as what I want start_string to turn into:
start_string = %("My" 'name' *is* -john- .doe. /ok?/ C:\\Drive)
correct_string = %(\"My\" \'name\' \*is\* \-john\- \.doe\. \/ok?\/ C:\\\\Drive)
Can somebody try and help me determine why I am not getting my desired output (correct_string) or tell me where I can find a method that does this, or even better tell me both? Thanks a lot!

Your pattern isn't defined correctly in your example. This is as close as I can get to your desired output.
Output
"\\\"My\\\" \\'name\\' \\*is\\* \\-john\\- \\.doe\\. \\/ok?\\/ C:\\\\Drive"
It's going to take some tweaking on your part to get it 100% but at least you can see your pattern in action now.
def self.escape_characters_in_string(string)
pattern = /(\'|\"|\.|\*|\/|\-|\\)/
string.gsub(pattern){|match|"\\" + match} # <-- Trying to take the currently found match and add a \ before it I have no idea how to do that).
end

I have changed above function like this:
def self.escape_characters_in_string(string)
pattern = /(\'|\"|\.|\*|\/|\-|\\|\)|\$|\+|\(|\^|\?|\!|\~|\`)/
string.gsub(pattern){|match|"\\" + match}
end
This is working great for regex

This should get you started:
print %("'*-.).gsub(/["'*.-]/){ |s| '\\' + s }
\"\'\*\-\.

Take a look at the ActiveRecord sanitization methods: http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveRecord/Base.html#method-c-sanitize_sql_array

Take a look at escape_string / quote method in Mysql class here

Related

Remove everything from trailing forward slash

Starting with this string:
file = "[/my/directory/file-*.log]"
I want to remove anything that comes after the trailing / and the closing square bracket, so the returned string is:
file = "[/my/directory/]"
I wondered if someone could recommend the safest way to do this.
I have been experimenting with chomp but I’m not getting anywhere, and gsub or sub doesn’t seem to fit either.
You can use File.dirname:
File.dirname("/my/directory/file-*.log")
=> "/my/directory"
If it's stuck inside the brackets, you can always write a custom replacement function that calls out to File.dirname:
def squaredir(file)
file.sub(/\[([^]]+)\]/) do |m|
'[%s]' % File.dirname($1)
end
end
Then you get this:
squaredir("[/my/directory/file-*.log]")
# => "[/my/directory]"
Here are three non-regex solutions:
file[0..file.rindex('/')] << ']'
file.sub(file[file.rindex('/')+1..-2], '')
"[#{File.dirname(file[1..-2])}]"
All return "[/my/directory/]".
file.split('/').take(file.split('/').size - 1).join('/') + ']'
=> "[/my/directory]"
Split the string into an array of strings separated by /
Take all the array elements except the last element
Join the strings together, re-inserting / between them
Add a trailing ]
file = "[/my/directory/file-*.log]"
file.sub(/^(.+)\/([^\/]+)\]/, '\1/]')
=> "[/my/directory/]"

Deleting all special characters from a string - ruby

I was doing the challenges from pythonchallenge writing code in ruby, specifically this one. It contains a really long string in page source with special characters. I was trying to find a way to delete them/check for the alphabetical chars.
I tried using scan method, but I think I might not use it properly. I also tried delete! like that:
a = "PAGE SOURCE CODE PASTED HERE"
a.delete! "!", "#" #and so on with special chars, does not work(?)
a
How can I do that?
Thanks
You can do this
a.gsub!(/[^0-9A-Za-z]/, '')
try with gsub
a.gsub!(/[!#%&"]/,'')
try the regexp on rubular.com
if you want something more general you can have a string with valid chars and remove what's not in there:
a.gsub!(/[^abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz ]/,'')
When you give multiple arguments to string#delete, it's the intersection of those arguments that is deleted. a.delete! "!", "#" deletes the intersections of the sets ! and # which means that nothing will be deleted and the method returns nil.
What you wanted to do is a.delete! "!#" with the characters to delete passed as a single string.
Since the challenge is asking to clean up the mess and find a message in it, I would go with a whitelist instead of deleting special characters. The delete method accepts ranges with - and negations with ^ (similar to a regex) so you can do something like this: a.delete! "^A-Za-z ".
You could also use regular expressions as shown by #arieljuod.
gsub is one of the most used Ruby methods in the wild.
specialname="Hello!#$#"
cleanedname = specialname.gsub(/[^a-zA-Z0-9\-]/,"")
I think a.gsub(/[^A-Za-z0-9 ]/, '') works better in this case. Otherwise, if you have a sentence, which typically should start with a capital letter, you will lose your capital letter. You would also lose any 1337 speak, or other possible crypts within the text.
Case in point:
phrase = "Joe can't tell between 'large' and large."
=> "Joe can't tell between 'large' and large."
phrase.gsub(/[^a-z ]/, '')
=> "oe cant tell between large and large"
phrase.gsub(/[^A-Za-z0-9 ]/, '')
=> "Joe cant tell between large and large"
phrase2 = "W3 a11 f10a7 d0wn h3r3!"
phrase2.gsub(/[^a-z ]/, '')
=> " a fa dwn hr"
phrase2.gsub(/[^A-Za-z0-9 ]/, '')
=> "W3 a11 f10a7 d0wn h3r3"
If you don't want to change the original string - i.e. to solve the challenge.
str.each_char do |letter|
if letter =~ /[a-z]/
p letter
end
end
You will have to write down your own string sanitize function, could easily use regex and the gsub method.
Atomic sample:
your_text.gsub!(/[!#\[;\]^%*\(\);\-_\/&\\|$\{#\}<>:`~"]/,'')
API sample:
Route: post 'api/sanitize_text', to: 'api#sanitize_text'
Controller:
def sanitize_text
return render_bad_request unless params[:text].present? && params[:text].present?
sanitized_text = params[:text].gsub!(/[!#\[;\]^%*\(\);\-_\/&\\|$\{#\}<>:`~"]/,'')
render_response( {safe_text: sanitized_text})
end
Then you call it
POST /api/sanitize_text?text=abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz123456<>$!#%23^%26*[]:;{}()`,.~'"\|/

How to convert a Ruby classname ("NewUserBatch") to string with underscores ("new_user_batch")

I need a generic way to convert classnames to lowercase with underscores. For example, I wish to convert the classname NewUserBatch to new_user_batch. How to do this?
Underscore.
>> 'NewUserBatch'.underscore
=> "new_user_batch"
It is included in Rails so if you don't use it, you can refer to its source code.
def underscore(camel_cased_word)
word = camel_cased_word.to_s.dup
word.gsub!(%r::/, '/')
word.gsub!(%r(?:([A-Za-z\d])|^)(#{inflections.acronym_regex})(?=\b|[^a-z])/) { "#{$1}#{$1 && '_'}#{$2.downcase}" }
word.gsub!(%r([A-Z\d]+)([A-Z][a-z])/,'\1_\2')
word.gsub!(%r([a-z\d])([A-Z])/,'\1_\2')
word.tr!("-", "_")
word.downcase!
word
end
In the simple case, where you only have non-namespaced class names, you can use this oneliner:
EDIT: updated with positive look-ahead assertion (thanks #vladr)
"MYRubyClassName".gsub(/(.)([A-Z](?=[a-z]))/,'\1_\2').downcase
# => "my_ruby_class_name"
This finds all uppercase chars that follow another char and in turn is followed by a lower case char, inserts underscore before it and then downcases everything.
Also a nice tip: to find if you know INPUT (NewUserBatch) and OUTPUT (new_user_batch) use the following method
"NewUserBatch".find_method("new_user_batch")

ruby regex find and replace

I have the following output:
time = 15:40:32.81
And I want to eliminate : and the . so that it looks like this:
15403281
I tried doing a
time.gsub(/\:\s/,'')
but that didn't work.
"15:40:32.81".gsub(/:|\./, "")
time = '15:40:32.81'
numeric_time = time.gsub(/[^0-9]+/, '')
# numeric_time will be 15403281
[^0-9] specifies a character class containing any character which is not a digit (^ at the beginning of a class negates it), which will then be replaced by an empty string (or, in other words, removed).
(Updated to replace \d with 0-9 for clarity, though they are equivalent).
If you want to be fancy and use an actual time object...
time = Time.now
time.strftime("%H%M%S") + time.usec.to_s[0,2]
# returns "15151788"
time.delete ':.'
But it'll edit your variable. If you don't want it:
time.dup.delete ':.'

Ruby MatchData class is repeating captures, instead of including additional captures as it "should"

Ruby 1.9.1, OSX 10.5.8
I'm trying to write a simple app that parses through of bunch of java based html template files to replace a period (.) with an underscore if it's contained within a specific tag. I use ruby all the time for these types of utility apps, and thought it would be no problem to whip up something using ruby's regex support. So, I create a Regexp.new... object, open a file, read it in line by line, then match each line against the pattern, if I get a match, I create a new string using replaceString = currentMatch.gsub(/./, '_'), then create another replacement as whole string by newReplaceRegex = Regexp.escape(currentMatch) and finally replace back into the current line with line.gsub(newReplaceRegex, replaceString) Code below, of course, but first...
The problem I'm having is that when accessing the indexes within the returned MatchData object, I'm getting the first result twice, and it's missing the second sub string it should otherwise be finding. More strange, is that when testing this same pattern and same test text using rubular.com, it works as expected. See results here
My pattern:
(<(?:WEBOBJECT|webobject) (?:NAME|name)=(?:[a-zA-Z0-9]+.)+(?:[a-zA-Z0-9]+)(?:>))
Text text:
<WEBOBJECT NAME=admin.normalMode.someOtherPatternWeDontWant.moreThatWeDontWant>moreNonMatchingText<WEBOBJECT NAME=admin.SecondLineMatch>AndEvenMoreNonMatchingText
Here's the relevant code:
tagRegex = Regexp.new('(<(?:WEBOBJECT|webobject) (?:NAME|name)=(?:[a-zA-Z0-9]+\.)+(?:[a-zA-Z0-9]+)(?:>))+')
testFile = File.open('RegexTestingCompFix.txt', "r+")
lineCount=0
testFile.each{|htmlLine|
lineCount += 1
puts ("Current line: #{htmlLine} at line num: #{lineCount}")
tagMatch = tagRegex.match(htmlLine)
if(tagMatch)
matchesArray = tagMatch.to_a
firstMatch = matchesArray[0]
secondMatch = matchesArray[1]
puts "First match: #{firstMatch} and second match #{secondMatch}"
tagMatch.captures.each {|lineMatchCapture|
puts "Current capture for tagMatches: #{lineMatchCapture} of total match count #{matchesArray.size}"
#create a new regex using the match results; make sure to use auto escape method
originalPatternString = Regexp.escape(lineMatchCapture)
replacementRegex = Regexp.new(originalPatternString)
#replace any periods with underscores in a copy of lineMatchCapture
periodToUnderscoreCorrection = lineMatchCapture.gsub(/\./, '_')
#replace original match with underscore replaced copy within line
htmlLine.gsub!(replacementRegex, periodToUnderscoreCorrection)
puts "The modified htmlLine is now: #{htmlLine}"
}
end
}
I would think that I should get the first tag in matchData[0] then the second tag in matchData1, or, what I'm really doing because I don't know how many matches I'll get within any given line is matchData.to_a.each. And in this case, matchData has two captures, but they're both the first tag match
which is: <WEBOBJECT NAME=admin.normalMode.someOtherPatternWeDontWant.moreThatWeDontWant>
So, what the heck am I doing wrong, why does rubular test give me the expected results?
You want to use the on String#scan instead of the Regexp#match:
tag_regex = /<(?:WEBOBJECT|webobject) (?:NAME|name)=(?:[a-zA-Z0-9]+\.)+(?:[a-zA-Z0-9]+)(?:>)/
lines = "<WEBOBJECT NAME=admin.normalMode.someOtherPatternWeDontWant.moreThatWeDontWant>moreNonMatchingText\
<WEBOBJECT NAME=admin.SecondLineMatch>AndEvenMoreNonMatchingText"
lines.scan(tag_regex)
# => ["<WEBOBJECT NAME=admin.normalMode.someOtherPatternWeDontWant.moreThatWeDontWant>", "<WEBOBJECT NAME=admin.SecondLineMatch>"]
A few recommendations for next ruby questions:
newlines and spaces are your friends, you don't loose points for using more lines on your code ;-)
use do-end on blocks instead of {}, improves readability a lot
declare variables in snake case (hello_world) instead of camel case (helloWorld)
Hope this helps
I ended up using the String.scan approach, the only tricky point there was figuring out that this returns an array of arrays, not a MatchData object, so there was some initial confusion on my part, mostly due to my ruby green-ness, but it's working as expected now. Also, I trimmed the regex per Trevoke's suggestion. But snake case? Never...;-) Anyway, here goes:
tagRegex = /(<(?:webobject) (?:name)=(?:\w+\.)+(?:\w+)(?:>))/i
testFile = File.open('RegexTestingCompFix.txt', "r+")
lineCount=0
testFile.each do |htmlLine|
lineCount += 1
puts ("Current line: #{htmlLine} at line num: #{lineCount}")
oldMatches = htmlLine.scan(tagRegex) #oldMatches thusly named due to not explicitly using Regexp or MatchData, as in "the old way..."
if(oldMatches.size > 0)
oldMatches.each_index do |index|
arrayMatch = oldMatches[index]
aMatch = arrayMatch[0]
#create a new regex using the match results; make sure to use auto escape method
replacementRegex = Regexp.new(Regexp.escape(aMatch))
#replace any periods with underscores in a copy of lineMatchCapture
periodToUnderscoreCorrection = aMatch.gsub(/\./, '_')
#replace original match with underscore replaced copy within line, matching against the new escaped literal regex
htmlLine.gsub!(replacementRegex, periodToUnderscoreCorrection)
puts "The modified htmlLine is now: #{htmlLine}"
end # I kind of still prefer the brackets...;-)
end
end
Now, why does MatchData work the way it does? It seems like it's behavior is a bug really, and certainly not very useful in general if you can't get it provide a simple means of accessing all the matches. Just my $.02
Small bits:
This regexp helps you get "normalMode" .. But not "secondLineMatch":
<webobject name=\w+\.((?:\w+)).+> (with option 'i', for "case insensitive")
This regexp helps you get "secondLineMatch" ... But not "normalMode":
<webobject name=\w+\.((?:\w+))> (with option 'i', for "case insensitive").
I'm not really good at regexpt but I'll keep toiling at it.. :)
And I don't know if this helps you at all, but here's a way to get both:
<webobject name=admin.(\w+) (with option 'i').

Resources