> I was trying to figure out how to take a string like this: 
> "http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMuClxuWdH8"
> and removing everything before (and including) the "=", 
> creating a new string with just "QMuClxuWdH8".
> 
> At first I thought I would have to do something like:
> 
> url = "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMuClxuWdH8"
> rev_url = url.reverse
> rev_chomped = rev_url.chomp("=")
> code = rev_chomped.reverse
> 
> ...which doesn't actually work of course and is ugly anyway. 
> I have a feeling I'll need to use regular expressions to do 
> this, but I'm really lost when it comes to regex. How could I 
> do something like this?

You could use regexps if you like, or you could take advantage of ruby's
URI and CGI libraries:

require 'uri'
require 'cgi'
url = URI::parse("http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foobar")
params = CGI::parse(url.query)
code = params['v'][0]

Regexps are more straightforward, URI/CGI libs are more robust. Either
should do for ya.

- donald