Ruby method variable declaration - ruby

Question

I'm trying to define methods to parse through an apache log file and pull ip addresses, URLs, requests per hour, and error codes. I've got everything working outside of methods, but when attempting to put that code into the methods I keep getting the error message "Stack level too deep." Here is the code in question.
class CommonLog
def initialize(logfile)
#logfile = logfile
end
def readfile
#readfile = File.readlines(#logfile).map { |line|
line.split()
}
#readfile = #readfile.to_s.split(" ")
end
def ip_histogram
#ip_count = 0
#readfile.each_index { |index|
if (#readfile[index] =~ /\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}/ )
puts #readfile[index]
puts #ip_count += 1
end
}
end
def url_histogram
url_count = 0
cleaned_file.each_index { |index|
if (cleaned_file[index] =~ /\/{1}(([a-z]{4,})|(\~{1}))\:{0}\S+/ )
puts cleaned_file[index]
puts url_count += 1
end
}
end
def requests_per_hour
end
def sorted_list
end
end
my_file = CommonLog.new("test_log")
cleaned_file = my_file.readfile
puts cleaned_file.ip_histogram

Answer 1

It looks like the problem lies on you CommonLog#readfile method:
def readfile
#readfile = File.readlines(#logfile).map { |line|
line.split()
}
#readfile = readfile.to_s.split(" ")
end
Notice that inside the implementation of readfile your calling readfile recursively? When it executes it reads the lines from the file, maps them and assign the result the #readfile; then it calls readfile and the method starts to execute again; this goes on forever, until you stack blows up because of too many recursive method calls.
I assume what you actually meant is:
#readfile = #readfile.to_s.split(" ")