Rails - Oct 2006 - can't seem to figure out how to secure the '\' character

In my Rails application, the user''s username basically has a dir
created
for it... For that reason, I have to make sure it doesn''t contain \ 
characters. (among others). I have been successful in filtering out the 
others with the include? method, but when I do: if sURL.include? "\", 
there is an error... How would I ask if the var sURL contained the \ 
character? Do I have to do any escaping? thanks.

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Ben wrote:
> when I do: if sURL.include? "\", there is an error... How would I
ask
> if the var sURL contained the \ character? Do I have to do any
> escaping? thanks.
Yes, you''re basically escaping the quotation mark now. Do
sURL.include?("\\") instead.

-- 
Jakob Skjerning - http://mentalized.net

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On Mon, 2 Oct 2006 15:07:10 +0200
Ben <rails-mailing-list-ARtvInVfO7ksV2N9l4h3zg@public.gmane.org> wrote:
> 
> In my Rails application, the user''s username basically has a dir
created
> for it... For that reason, I have to make sure it doesn''t contain
\
> characters. (among others). I have been successful in filtering out the 
> others with the include? method, but when I do: if sURL.include?
"\",
> there is an error... How would I ask if the var sURL contained the \ 
> character? Do I have to do any escaping? thanks.
Hey Ben, what you actually want to do is the inverse.  You want a regex that has
only allowed characters and then you want to reject anything else.  In other
words, you have "I accept everything except, ..." which leads to you
playing constant catch-up.  What you really want is "I reject everything,
except ..."  or "I accept only X and reject everything else."

I would start with something like this:

if username =~ /^[a-zA-Z0-9]*$/
  # accepted!
else
  # rejected!
end

Another thing is to strip the username of spaces and then freeze it so that it
doesn''t get double interpreted or accidentally modified later in your
program.

-- 
Zed A. Shaw, MUDCRAP-CE Master Black Belt Sifu
http://www.zedshaw.com/
http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/
http://www.lingr.com/room/3yXhqKbfPy8 -- Come get help.

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