Why [1, 1, 2] | [] == [1, 2] is `true` in Ruby? - ruby

I am not sure about how the binary OR operator works in Ruby with empty arrays, but it looks like it creates a Set from an array with duplicated elements.

This removal of duplicates has nothing to do with the second array being empty. It is the normal behavior of the Array#| method and described in the docs:
ary | other_ary → new_ary
Set Union — Returns a new array by joining ary with other_ary, excluding any duplicates and preserving the order from the given arrays.
It compares elements using their hash and eql? methods for efficiency.

According to ruby docs
Set Union — Returns a new array by joining array with other array,
excluding any duplicates and preserving the order from the original
array.
It compares elements using their hash and eql? methods for efficiency.
[ "a", "b", "c" ] | [ "c", "d", "a" ]
#=> [ "a", "b", "c", "d" ]
ary | other_ary → new_ary

Related

Why does uniq return original value of array after map in Ruby?

I tried the following code:
numbers = [1,2,2,3,4]
numbers.map.uniq {|number| number < 2 }
My understanding is that the return value of map is passed to uniq. I expected:
[true, false]
Instead, I received:
[1, 2]
It seems that uniq maintains a reference to the original array.
Could someone provide insight into this behaviour?
Array#uniq accepts a block, defining the condition on what should be treated uniq.
main > numbers = [1,2,2,3,4].map
#⇒ #<Enumerator: ...>
main > numbers.uniq
#⇒ [1, 2, 3, 4]
# effectively the same as
main > numbers.to_a.uniq
#⇒ [1, 2, 3, 4]
main > numbers.uniq { |number| number.odd? }
#⇒ [1, 2]
The latter returns one odd and one non-odd (even) element. In your case it returns 1 element that is less than 2 and one element that is greater or equal to two.
Note, that map enumerator is effectively there:
numbers.each &Math.method(:sqrt)
#⇒ [1.0, 1.4142135623730951, 1.4142135623730951,
# 1.7320508075688772, 2.0]
You're not actually doing anything with the map call, your function is roughly equivalent to this:
[1,2,2,3,4].uniq {|number| p number < 2 }
Methods like map return an Enumerable type, and you are then calling uniq on that Enumerable. From the Ruby docs:
If no block is given, an Enumerator is returned instead.
Effectively your map is a no-op.
I think you're also misunderstanding the uniq method. Uniq is going to filter out any elements from an array that aren't unique (eg: [1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5].uniq == [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]), not return whether the element is unique (true or false) in the array.
numbers.uniq.map { |number| number < 2 }
uniq method
uniq → new_ary click to toggle source uniq {|item| ...} → new_ary
Returns a new array by removing duplicate values in self.
If a block is given, it will use the return value of the block for
comparison.
It compares values using their hash and eql? methods for efficiency.
self is traversed in order, and the first occurrence is kept.
a = [ "a", "a", "b", "b", "c" ]
a.uniq # => ["a", "b", "c"]
b = [["student","sam"], ["student","george"], ["teacher","matz"]]
b.uniq {|s| s.first} # => [["student", "sam"], ["teacher", "matz"]]
You can read more about uniq method here.

Sort hash by order of keys in secondary array

I have a hash:
hash = {"a" => 1, "b" =>2, "c" => 3, "d" => 4}
And I have an array:
array = ["b", "a", "d"]
I would like to create a new array that is made up of the original hash values that correspond with original hash keys that are also found in the original array while maintaining the sequence of the original array. The desired array being:
desired_array = [2, 1, 3]
The idea here is to take the word "bad", assign numbers to the alphabet, and then make an array of the numbers that correspond with "b" "a" and "d" in that order.
Since your question is a little unclear I'm assuming you want desired_array to be an array (you say you want a new array and finish the sentence off with new hash). Also in your example I'm assuming you want desired_array to be [2, 1, 4] for ['b', 'a', 'd'] and not [2, 1, 3] for ['b', 'a', 'c'].
You should just you the Enumerable#map method to create a array that will map the first array to the your desired array like so:
desired_array = array.map { |k| hash[k] }
You should familiarize yourself with the Enumerable#map method, it's quite the handy method. From the rubydocs for the method: Returns a new array with the results of running block once for every element in enum. So in this case we are iterating through array and invoking hash[k] to select the value from the hash and creating a new array with values selected by the hash. Since iteration is in order, you will maintain the original sequence.
I would use Enumerable#map followed by Enumerable#sort_by, for example:
hash = {"d" => 4, "b" =>2, "c" => 3, "a" => 1}
order = ["b", "a", "d"]
# For each key in order, create a [key, value] pair from the hash.
# (Doing it this way instead of filtering the hash.to_a is O(n) vs O(n^2) without
# an additional hash-probe mapping. It also feels more natural.)
selected_pairs = order.map {|v| [v, hash[v]]}
# For each pair create a surrogate ordering based on the `order`-index
# (The surrogate value is only computed once, not each sort-compare step.
# This is, however, an O(n^2) operation on-top of the sort.)
sorted = selected_pairs.sort_by {|p| order.find_index(p[0]) }
p sorted
# sorted =>
# [["b", 2], ["a", 1], ["d", 4]]
I've not turned the result back into a Hash, because I am of the belief that hashes should not be treated as having any sort of order, except for debugging aids. (Do keep in mind that Ruby 2 hashes are ordered-by-insertion.)
All you need is values_at:
hash.values_at *array
Enumerable methods map, each works perfect
desired_array = array.map { |k| hash[k] }
or
desired_array = array.each { |k| hash[k] }

Each_pair analog for array (zipping 2 arrays)

There is each_pair method allows getting pairs of hash on every loop iteration:
{ 1 => "a", 2 => "b" }.each_pair do |key, value|
# do something with #{key} and #{value}
end
How can index of current array element could be known on every loop iteration?
array.each do |element|
# what is element index in array?
end
There is a boring solution using some incrementing iterator. But that iterator
should be assigned before the loop and should be manually incremented on every
iteration. It's obviously boring.
It will be great if there is a some way to zip some array with 1.. array and
get array of tuples like ["b", "d", "e"] → [(1,"b"), (2,"d"), (3,"e")] and
than pattern matched each element of the pair in| |` statement.
So, finally, what I am looking for is some function f, that:
f(["a"]) do |index, element|
# index == 1, element == "a"
end
You can loop over an array and get the current index by using Enumerable::each_with_index
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming that you want an array consisting of sub-arrays with the originall arrays index and value?
a= ["b", "d", "e"]
a.enum_with_index.map {|ind, val| [ind, val]
=> [[0, "b"], [1, "d"], [2, "e"]]

Weird multiplicator operator behavior in a two arrays to hash combination

I was looking for a way to convert two arrays into a single hash. I found something like this :
a1 = [1,2,3]
a2 = [?A, ?B, ?C]
Hash[*a1.zip(a2).flatten]
I thought that this syntax was a bit weird, because Hash[a1.zip a2] would do exactly the same. But more than that, I don't understand the need for the * operator.
I know that it turns objects into arrays, or something alike (but not in the same way [] does, apparently).
When I execute :
a = a1.zip(a2).flatten
=> [1, "A", 2, "B", 3, "C"]
a = *a1.zip(a).flatten
=> [1, "A", 2, "B", 3, "C"]
Nothing really happens, and for what I know of the * operator, this seems to be the normal behavior.
So, why does
Hash[*a1.zip(a2).flatten]
=> {1=>"A", 2=>"B", 3=>"C"}
Hash[a1.zip(a).flatten]
=> {}
Return different values, given that the parameters seem identical ?
I guess I must be missing something about the * operator.
Thanks.
When the * operator is used with arrays like that it is called the splat operator.
Think of it as an operator that removes the first level of brackets around an array. This is quite useful because you can turn arrays into argument lists:
def stuff(x, y, z)
end
a = [1, 2, 3]
stuff(*a) # x,y,z gets assigned 1,2,3
The same thing works with Hash[]. The [] operator on Hash accepts as arguments:
An argument list of key-value pairs:
Hash["a", 1, "b", 2] #=> { "a" => 1, "b" => 2 }
An array or array pairs representing key-values:
Hash[ [["a", 1], ["b", 2]] ] #=> { "a" => 1, "b" => 2 }
Hash[] not does NOT accept a plain flat array as arguments:
Hash[ ["a", 1, "b", 2] ] #=> {}
So with this in mind, plus our understanding what the splat operator does you can now see what is happening:
paired_array = a1.zip(a2)
=> [[1, "A"], [2, "B"], [3, "C"]]
plain_array = a1.zip(a2).flatten
=> [1, "A", 2, "B", 3, "C"]
# Per rule 2 above we know this works
Hash[paired_array]
=> {1=>"A", 2=>"B", 3=>"C"}
# This won't work
Hash[plain_array]
=> {}
# But if we turn the plain_array into an argument list,
# then we know per rule 1 above that this will work
Hash[*plain_array]
=> {1=>"A", 2=>"B", 3=>"C"}
Now then you might be wondering what the hey is happening when you do:
a = *plain_array
=> [1, "A", 2, "B", 3, "C"]
Since we know the splat operator effectively strips the brackets, we get this:
a = 1, "A", 2, "B", 3, "C"
...which funnily enough is valid Ruby code and just creates an array again.
You can read more fun stuff about the splat operator in the rubyspec test case for the splat operator.
I think there's a mistake in your example, it should be like this:
Hash[a1.zip(a2).flatten] #=> {}
Hash[*a1.zip(a2).flatten] #=> {1=>"A", 2=>"B", 3=>"C"}
The splat operator in the assign mode converts an array to multiple arguments:
duck, cow, pig = *["quack","mooh","oing"] #=> ["quack","mooh","oing"]
Actually it's identical to
duck, cow, pig = ["quack","mooh","oing"] #=> ["quack","mooh","oing"]
But from the documentation you can see that Hash[...] receives multiple arguments, so the splat operator helps to assign each of those multiple arguments.
It's not that mysterious:
a1 = [1,2,3]
a2 = [?A, ?B, ?C]
p Hash[*a1.zip(a2).flatten] #{1=>"A", 2=>"B", 3=>"C"}
The * converts the array to a mere list (of arguments).
But why wasn't this syntax used?
p Hash[a1.zip(a2)]# {1=>"A", 2=>"B", 3=>"C"}
Well, it is new since Ruby 1.9.2. Your example is probably older.

Ruby removing duplicates in enumerable lists

Is there a good way in ruby to remove duplicates in enumerable lists (i.e. reject, etc.)
For array you can use uniq() method
a = [ "a", "a", "b", "b", "c" ]
a.uniq #=> ["a", "b", "c"]
so if you just
(1..10).to_a.uniq
or
%w{ant bat cat ant}.to_a.uniq
because anyway almost every methods you do implement will return as an Array class.
Well the strategy would be to convert them to arrays and remove the duplicates from the arrays. By the way lists are arrays in ruby in any case so I'm not sure what you mean by "enumerable lists"
You can do a conversion to a Set, if element order is not important.
http://www.ruby-doc.org/core/classes/Set.html
I like using the set logic operators, if the object doesn't have a .uniq method.
a = [2,3,3,5,5,5,6] # => [2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 5, 6]
a | a # => [2, 3, 5, 6]

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