because the '?' in the string is a metacharacter so when turned into a Regexp by String#match(pattern), it doesn't match 'itself'
Try @joe.match(Regexp.escape(@html_code))
Or just look at how Regexp.escape(@joe) differs from @joe
-Rob
Rob Biedenharn http://agileconsultingllc.com Rob@AgileConsultingLLC.com