I'm extracting some information from an XML file, and I want to perform some modifications on the data while keeping a copy of the original in a variable "origFile". This is what I have:

require "rexml/document"
include REXML

doc = Document.new File.new(thePath)
root = doc.root 
array = []
root.elements.each("dict/string") {|element| array << element}

origFile = []
root.elements.each("dict"){|i| origFile << i}

theBody = array[6][0].to_s

theBody.gsub!(/\&lt;!-- more --\&gt;/, "----------Read More----------")

The problem is that after I perform gsub! on theBody, origFile also has the modification. I don't understand why this would be or how to fix it. I would really appreciate your help.