How to replace the first occurence in Swift?

Question

How can I use the replacingOccurrences with regex and only replace the first occurrence?

Example

var str = "= 1 = 2 = 3"
str = str.replacingOccurrences(of: "(\\d+)", with: "\\\\$1", options: .regularExpression)
// prints: = \\1 = \\2 = \\3
// should print: = \\1 = 2 = 3

Answer 1

String.range() will stop at the first match:

var str = "= 1 = 2 = 3"
if let range = str.range(of: "\\d+", options: .regularExpression) {
    let substr = str[range]
    str = str.replacingCharacters(in: range, with: "\\\\" + substr)
}

print(str)