Groovy Goodness: Replace Characters in a String with CollectReplacements

We can use the collectReplacements(Closure) method to replace characters in a String. We pass a closure to the method and the closure is invoked for each character in the String value. If we return null the character is not transformed, otherwise we can return the replacement character.

def s = 'Gr00vy is gr8'

def replacement = {
    // Change 8 to eat
    if (it == '8') {
        'eat'
    // Change 0 to o
    } else if (it == '0') {
        'o'
    // Do not transform
    } else {
        null
    }
}

assert s.collectReplacements(replacement) == 'Groovy is great'

Code written with Groovy 2.1.6