18

I know you can do something like: 

"SomeWordHere".underscore.gsub("_", " ")

to get "some word here".

I thought that might be a little too much for something so simple. Is there a more efficient way (maybe a built-in method?) to convert "SomeWordHere" to "some word here"?

sjsc
  • 4,552
  • 10
  • 39
  • 55

4 Answers4

31

alt text

The methods underscore and humanize are designed for conversions between tables, class/package names, etc. You are better off using your own code to do the replacement to avoid surprises. See comments.

"SomeWordHere".underscore => "some_word_here"

"SomeWordHere".underscore.humanize => "Some word here"

"SomeWordHere".underscore.humanize.downcase => "some word here"
Community
  • 1
  • 1
Anurag
  • 140,337
  • 36
  • 221
  • 257
  • 2
    Look at the implementation of underscore and humanize: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1509915/converting-camel-case-to-underscore-case-in-ruby http://snippets.dzone.com/posts/show/6350 - there's a lot of string operations in there and this is arguably more complex than the OP's original suggestion. – Mark Byers May 16 '10 at 03:27
  • Sorry better link - humanize for strings: http://rails.rubyonrails.org/classes/Inflector.html#M001633 – Mark Byers May 16 '10 at 03:50
  • 5
    `underscore` and `humanize` are not only over-blown but also incorrect for OP's purposes. For example, `"UserId".underscore.humanize` gives `"User"`. `underscore`has its own replacements. For example, `"ABC::UserId".underscore` gives `"abc/user_id"`. You're right, a custom implementation is the way to go. – Anurag May 16 '10 at 06:38
  • 1
    && OP: Those functions are open source so if a custom implementation is needed, it shouldn't be too much of a hassle. – aarona May 16 '10 at 06:55
15

I think this is a simpler solution:

"SomeWordHere".titleize.downcase

Weston Ganger
  • 6,324
  • 4
  • 41
  • 39
  • Interesting: `titleize` uses the same logic as `humanize`. So the same caveats apply (`"SomeWordHereId".titleize` will strip the 'id') – David Cook May 12 '22 at 02:42
6

You can use a regular expression:

puts "SomeWordHere".gsub(/[a-zA-Z](?=[A-Z])/, '\0 ').downcase

Output:

some word here

One reason you might prefer this is if your input could contain dashes or underscores and you don't want to replace those with spaces:

puts "Foo-BarBaz".underscore.gsub('_', ' ')
puts "Foo-BarBaz".gsub(/[a-zA-Z](?=[A-Z])/, '\0 ').downcase

Output:

foo bar baz
foo-bar baz
Mark Byers
  • 811,555
  • 193
  • 1,581
  • 1,452
1

Nope there is no built-in method that I know of. Any more efficient then a one-liner? Don't thinks so. Maybe humanize instead of the gsub, but you don't get exactly the same output.

Jakub Hampl
  • 39,863
  • 10
  • 77
  • 106
  • Just because it's a "one liner" doesn't mean it's efficient (assuming he means runtime performance). Look at the source code for it: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1509915/converting-camel-case-to-underscore-case-in-ruby – Mark Byers May 16 '10 at 03:31
  • 1
    Exactly I think efficient could be interpreted in case of runtime or DRYness. I interpreted it to mean briefness but you are right about the runtime. – Jakub Hampl May 16 '10 at 03:36