Ruby : Pretty Code

I've been through many beginners tutorials for Ruby and I must say I really like this language. I think it's going to be very useful. The Pragmatic Programmers - Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt - give some good advice to learning a new language ... they say you must ask the question, "How will I know when I'm done?". I decided that my first "bout" of learning would be concluded when I had written my own program to prettify the text files I write for this blog! Usually I have to search and replace certain characters, manually add html tags for line breaks and code snippets, ensure that any preformatted line doesn't exceed 62 characters ... in short, a bit of a chore.



So here's the Ruby blog prettifier ... and of course, this blog post is the first to have been run through it! :)

class String

def subAfter str, ext
    self[0..self.index(str)-1]+"."+ext
end

end

$column = 62
filename = ARGV[0].to_s

puts "Processing "+filename+"...\n"

File.open(filename, "r") do |file|

    outFile = File.new(filename.subAfter(".","htm"), "w")

    code = false;
    
    file.each_line do |line|
    
        if line.chomp == "@@@"

            if code
                outFile.puts "</pre></tt></blockquote>"
            else
                outFile.puts "<blockquote><pre><tt>"    
            end

            code = !code;
            
        else
        
            if code
            
                long = line
                line = ""

                while long.length > $column

                    space = long[0..$column].rindex(" ")
                    
                    if space == nil
                        space = $column
                    end
                    
                    line += long[0..space]+"\n"
                    long =  long[space+1..-1]
               
                end

                line += long
                   
            
                line.gsub!(/</,"<")
                line.gsub!(/>/,">")
            else
                line.gsub!(/\n\r|\n|\r/, "<br>") 
            end

            outFile.puts line
    
        end
        
    end
    
    outFile.close()

# This is a really long comment which I've added to show you 
how the code prettifier neatly looks for the last space before 
col 80 and splits the line :) 
#_This_is_another_really_long_comment_which_I've_added_to_show_
you_how_the_code_prettifier_simply_cuts_the_line_if_there_are_n
o_spaces!

end