re = /\n +(?=[[:alpha:]])/m
str = 'this line
should be joined with this line
and with this line
but this line has a
0 at the front which is not alphabetic so should not be joined
0 an indented line
but what should happen here?'
subst = ' '
result = str.gsub(re, subst)
# Print the result of the substitution
puts result
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for Ruby, please visit: http://ruby-doc.org/core-2.2.0/Regexp.html