SlimString - Ruby method to slim down UTF-8 character strings

Summary

Module SlimString contains a single method of the same (but snake-case) name SlimString#slim_string, which offers functionality to “slim down” character String, such as truncating extra spaces with many options you can select. It fully takes into account *UTF-8 characters* like CJK Zenkaku spaces.

The full package of this class is found in SlimString Ruby Gems page (with document created from source annotation with yard) and in Github

Description

How to use it?

  1. Simply call it in a full path (it is extended and so you can call it in this way.

SlimString.slim_string("\nabc\n\n", strip: false) # => "\nabc"

  1. Include in your class/module (or top level), and you can use it without the module name.

include SlimString
slim_string("\nabc\n\n", strip: false) # => "\nabc"

  1. Include it in String class like and you can use it as an instance method.

class String
  include SlimString
end

"\nabc\n\n".slim_string(trim: false) # => "\nabc"

Options

All options (aka, arguments) are Boolean. The given string is processed in this order regardless how you do or do not specify them.

delete_newlines

(Def: false) Delete all new lines (fnrv) (maybe useful for Japanese text, unless more than 1 alphabet word are split across 2 lines).

convert_spaces

(Def: false) Convert any sort of spaces (including new lines) into an ASCII space.

convert_blanks

(Def: true) Convert all blanks (=spaces except kind of new lines) into an ASCII space.

truncate_spaces

(Def: false) Truncate any consecutive spaces into one.

truncate_blanks

(Def: true) Truncate any consecutive blanks into (the last) one.

truncate_triple_newlines

(Def: false) Truncate 3 or more consecutive newlines into 2.

delete_blanks

(Def: false) Simply delete all blanks excluding new lines (n.b., “a top” and “atop” are regarded identical.

strip

(Def: true) Ruby strip; strip spaces including new lines at the head and tail.

trim_blanks

(Def: false) strip blanks (but new lines) at the tail.

trim

(Def: true) Trim the tail to strip any spaces including new lines at the tail.

Install

This script requires Ruby Version 2.0 or above. Also, all this library depends on SubObject (sub_object), which you can find in RubyGems.

Developer’s note

The source code is maintained also in Github with no intuitive interface for annotation but with easily-browsable ChangeLog

Tests

The Ruby codes under the directory test/ are the test scripts. You can run them from the top directory as ruby test/test_****.rb or simply run make test or rake test.

Known bugs and Todo items

  • None

Author

Masa Sakano < info a_t wisebabel dot com >

Versions

The versions of this package follow Semantic Versioning (2.0.0) semver.org/

License

MIT