escape a string in Ruby

  def escape_string(str)
    Regexp.escape(str)
  end

This code snippet is a Ruby method that escapes a string passed to it as an argument. The method starts by defining the name of the method and the argument that it will receive (in this case “str”). It then uses the Regexp.escape method, which is a built-in Ruby method that searches the provided string for characters that have a special meaning in regular expressions and escapes them - meaning it adds a backward slash in front of those characters. This is done to avoid any unexpected behaviour. At the end, the method returns the escaped string.