Question

I wrote some code to get input from a user and then alter it to my needs. I need it in the altered and unaltered form so I am saving the input into two variables. What I don’t understand is why it both variables are changing. I tried some extra puts lines to determine what the cause is but I am unable to figure it out. The code:

puts "Enter the full directory path of the flv files."
folder = gets.chomp
puts "Folder 1: " + folder
path = folder
path.slice!(0..6)
path.gsub!('\\', '/')
path += '/'
puts "Folder: " + folder
puts "Path: " + path

With input: f:\folder\subfolder\another

Output:

Folder 1: f:\folder\subfolder\another 
Folder: folder/subfolder/another
Path: folder/subfolder/another/

What I’m going for is getting a directory and keeping the directory for other processes, but also transforming it into a URL friendly format. Ideas?

Answer 1

path = folder # does not actually copy the object, copies the reference
path.object_id == folder.object_id # the objects are the same, see
path.slice!(0..6) # all bang methods work with the same object

Thus your path is a reference to the same object as folder.

To fix this, use

path = folder.clone