Delete Duplicate Lines Ruby - ruby

Question

I working on a json file, I think. But Regardless, I'm working with a lot of different hashes and fetching different values and etc. This is
{"notification_rule"=>
{"id"=>"0000000",
"contact_method"=>
{"id"=>"000000",
"address"=>"cod.lew#gmail.com",}
{"notification_rule"=>
{"id"=>"000000"
"contact_method"=>
{"id"=>"PO0JGV7",
"address"=>"cod.lew#gmail.com",}
Essential, this is the type of hash I'm currently working with. With my code:
I wanted to stop duplicates of the same thing in the text file. Because whenever I run this code it brings both the address of both these hashes. And I understand why, because its looping over again, but I thought this code that I added would help resolve that issue:
Final UPDATE
if jdoc["notification_rule"]["contact_method"]["address"].to_s.include?(".com")
numbers.print "Employee Name: "
numbers.puts jdoc["notification_rule"]["contact_method"]["address"].gsub(/#target.com/, '').gsub(/\w+/, &:capitalize)
file_names = ['Employee_Information.txt']
file_names.each do |file_name|
text = File.read(file_name)
lines = text.split("\n")
new_contents = lines.uniq.join("\n")
File.open(file_name, "w") { |file| file.puts new_contents }
end
else
nil
end

Answer 1

This code looks really confused and lacking a specific purpose. Generally Ruby that's this tangled up is on the wrong track, as with Ruby there's usually a simple way of expressing something simple, and testing for duplicated addresses is one of those things that shouldn't be hard.
One of the biggest sources of confusion is the responsibility of a chunk of code. In that example you're not only trying to import data, loop over documents, clean up email addresses, and test for duplicates, but somehow facilitate printing out the results. That's a lot of things going on all at once, and they all have to work perfectly for that chunk of code to be fully operational. There's no way of getting it partially working, and no way of knowing if you're even on the right track.
Always try and break down complex problems into a few simple stages, then chain those stages together as necessary.
Here's how you can define a method to clean up your email addresses:
def address_scrub(address)
address.gsub(/\#target.com/, '').gsub(/\w+/, &:capitalize)
end
Where that can be adjusted as necessary, and presumably tested to ensure it's working correctly, which you can now do indepenedently of the other code.
As for the rest, it looks like this:
require 'set'
# Read in duplicated addresses from a file, clean up with chomp, using a Set
# for fast lookups.
duplicates = Set.new(
File.open("Employee_Information.txt", "r").readlines.map(&:chomp)
)
# Extract addresses from jdoc document array
filtered = jdocs.map do |jdoc|
# Convert to jdoc/address pair
[ jdoc, address_scrub(jdoc["notification_rule"]["contact_method"]["address"]) ]
end.reject do |jdoc, address|
# Remove any that are already in the duplicates list
duplicates.include?(address)
end.map do |jdoc, _|
# Return only the document
jdoc
end
Where that processes jdocs, an array of jdoc structures, and removes duplicates in a series of simple steps.
With the chaining approach you can see what's happening before you add on the next "link", so you can work incrementally towards a solution, adjusting as you go. Any mistakes are fairly easy to catch because you're able to, at any time, inspect the intermediate products of those stages.