When would one use the replace method of a string?

ruby

Solution

`replace` changes the contents of the current instance, rather than assigning a new instance. See differences:

a = 'old_string'
b = a
b.replace 'new_string'
a
# => "new_string"

vs

a = 'old_string'
b = a
b = 'new_string'
a
# => "old_string"

Problem

I was messing around and decided to see if `"abcde".replace("a", "e")` would return `"ebcde"`. Turns out this isn't how replace works (I admit I guessed at the method name seeing if one such existed for these purposes). Instead after reading the docs I found that it has odd behavior. ``` string = "abcde" string.replace("e") #=> "e" ``` `string` is now `"e"`. What is the point of the replace method? To me it looks like a setter method, but you could just as easily do `string = "e"`. Are there specific use-cases for replace?

Original source