# Replace behaving strange?
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/replace-behaving-strange/20008
**Category:** General Usage
**Created:** [January 23, 2019, 9:52pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/replace-behaving-strange/20008 "2019-01-23T21:52:05Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@OvidiusCicero](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/OvidiusCicero)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2019, 9:52pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/replace-behaving-strange/20008/1 "2019-01-23T21:52:05Z")
Initialize string array
```
s = SubString{String}["Julia", "uses", "multiple", "dispatch", "as", "a", "paradigm,", "making", "it", "easy", "to", "express", "many", "object-oriented", "and", "functional", "programming", "patterns.", "The", "standard", "library", "provides", "..."]
```
I try to replace a certain character in all strings of the array
```
replace.(data, "." => "")
```
yields an error
```julia
ERROR: DimensionMismatch("arrays could not be broadcast to a common size")
Stacktrace:
[1] _bcs1 at .\broadcast.jl:439 [inlined]
[2] _bcs at .\broadcast.jl:433 [inlined]
[3] broadcast_shape at .\broadcast.jl:427 [inlined]
[4] combine_axes at .\broadcast.jl:422 [inlined]
[5] instantiate at .\broadcast.jl:266 [inlined]
[6] materialize(::Base.Broadcast.Broadcasted{Base.Broadcast.DefaultArrayStyle{1},Nothing,typeof(replace),Tuple{Array{SubString{String},1},Array{String,1}}}) at .\broadcast.jl:748
[7] top-level scope at none:0
```
but
```
(t->replace(t, "a"=>"x")).(s)
```
works as expected:
```julia
23-element Array{String,1}:
"Julix"
"uses"
"multiple"
"dispxtch"
"xs"
"x"
"pxrxdigm,"
"mxking"
"it"
"exsy"
"to"
"express"
"mxny"
"object-oriented"
"xnd"
"functionxl"
"progrxmming"
"pxtterns."
"The"
"stxndxrd"
"librxry"
"provides"
"..."
```
I expected it to automatically broadcast it over the array. Why doesn’t it work like that?
---
### Author:  [@kristoffer.carlsson](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/kristoffer.carlsson)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2019, 9:55pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/replace-behaving-strange/20008/2 "2019-01-23T21:55:47Z")
You need to do `replace.(s, ("." => "",))` The `Pair` is not interpreted as a scalar w.r.t broadcasting.
---
### Author:  [@OvidiusCicero](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/OvidiusCicero)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2019, 9:56pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/replace-behaving-strange/20008/3 "2019-01-23T21:56:33Z")
thanks!
---
### Author:  [@stevengj](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/stevengj)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2019, 11:01pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/replace-behaving-strange/20008/4 "2019-01-23T23:01:08Z")
> [@kristoffer.carlsson](#):
>
> The `Pair` is not interpreted as a scalar w.r.t broadcasting.
It probably should be?
---
### Author:  [@Azamat](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Azamat)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2019, 1:53am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/replace-behaving-strange/20008/5 "2019-01-24T01:53:45Z")
I can prepare PR if there is support for broadcasting `Pair ` as a scalar.
---
### Author:  [@jablauvelt](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jablauvelt)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2019, 10:01pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/replace-behaving-strange/20008/6 "2019-05-28T22:01:35Z")
I’m a nobody in terms of development, but as a new user who found the lack of broadcasting to be confusing, I support it!
Especially since the following works without needing to make the Pair into a tuple:
`@. replace(["test", "test2"], r"[es]" => "")`
---
### Author:  [@stevengj](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/stevengj)
#### Post date: [May 31, 2019, 5:00pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/replace-behaving-strange/20008/7 "2019-05-31T17:00:19Z")
[https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/pull/32209](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/pull/32209)