title: Ruby /& in a String
body: <p>I need to include /&amp; in a ZPL string to break up a long line on a label.</p>
  
  <p>There is a <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6569359/replace-to-in-ruby-seems-impossible">stackoverflow post</a> that suggests a lot of methods but does not seem to answer my question:</p>
  
  <p>Here is my problem:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;&gt;"asdf &amp; asdf".gsub("&amp;", "\\\\&amp;")
  =&gt;"asdf \\&amp; asdf"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Yes, if I puts the string it will return what I want:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;&gt;puts "asdf &amp; asdf".gsub("&amp;", "\\\\&amp;")
  =&gt;asdf \&amp; asdf
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But I need the actual string to equal <code>asdf \&amp; asdf</code></p>
  
  <p>I've tried inspect:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;&gt;"asdf &amp; asdf".gsub("&amp;", "\\\\&amp;").inspect
  =&gt;"\"asdf \\\\&amp; asdf\""
  
  &gt;&gt;"asdf &amp; asdf".gsub("&amp;", "\&amp;").inspect
  =&gt;"\"asdf &amp; asdf\""
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But that also does not return what I need. Maybe there is some combination that I'm missing that will return a \&amp; in the string?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks</p>