String::Mask provides a tool for manipulating strings in a logicomathematical manner (e.g. add, subtract, xor) using masks. This new release simply changes #to_s and #inspect to return strings with the mask character re-inserted. Here are some examples.

  require 'strmask'

  m1 = "abc..123".to_mask('.')
  m2 = "ab..789.".to_mask('.')

  m1 - m2  #=> "....789."
  m1 + m2  #=> "abc.7893"
  m1 * m2  #=> "ab..789."
  m1 ^ m2  #=> "..c.7..3"
  m1 % m2  #=> "abc..123"

This library was originally written to expirement with genetic algorithms. It is a very generic set of functions. No doubt there are many other potential uses.