Correct way to do find a pattern and replace with a link in a Rails view
ruby, ruby-on-rails, ruby-on-rails-3, ruby-on-rails-3.2
Solution
Double up the equals signs. `<%== post.content.gsub(...) %>`. If users are also potentially writing HTML in this content, then you'll need to Sanitize it, so that only specified HTML tags are permitted, for example.
EDIT | Actually, provided the search string you are replacing does not contain HTML special characters, you can just escape the string, then do the gsub:
<%== h(post.content).gsub(...) %>
Problem
My goal is to find something like 'b1234' in a paragraph and replace it with: ``` <a href=http://bugtracker.com/bug/1234>b1234</a> ``` I made this using plain ruby: ``` "I fixed b1234 today".gsub(/(b([0-9]+))/i, '<a href=http://bugtracker.com/bug/\2>\1</a>') ``` It outputs: ``` => "I fixed <a href=http://bugtracker.com/bug/1234>b1234</a> today" ``` I have the following in my rails view: ``` <%= post.content %> ``` Note: I don't store the HTML link code in my DB when posts are created. If I do: ``` <%= post.content.gsub(...) %> ``` I get escaped html in the output file: ``` <a href= ... instead of <a href= ... ``` ...And I want that behavior, I don't want users posting HTML (iframes would be scary!). But, how I can I still get the find and replace functionality I want without sacrificing security? Maybe a Javascript approach? Thanks!