Question

I have strings that contain a variable number of leading hyphens and which may or may not contain a hyphen in the body of the string. For example:

–xxx-xxx

-xxxx

—xxxxxx-xx

How do I in Ruby a) count the number of leading hyphens and b) return the string with the leading hyphens removed?

Many thanks for your help!

Answer 1

>> "--xxx-xxx"[/\A-+/].size
=> 2
>> "--xxx-xxx".sub(/\A-+/, '')
=> "xxx-xxx"

EDIT: The comment from @shime made me want to show the other relevant capability of String#[] or String#slice:

>> "--xxx-xxx"[/\A-+(.+)/, 1]
=> "xxx-xxx"