Difference between string operators + and << in Ruby - ruby

I am new to Ruby and to this site.
The following two functions are different, one alters the variable outside the function and one does not.
def m1 (x)
x << "4"
end
def m2 (x)
x = x + "4"
end
str="123"
m2(str) #str remains unchanged 123
m1(str) #str is changed to 1234
I would like to make sure I understand this correctly -
When m1 is called, the reference to str is copied and passed to the function which sees it as x. Operator << changes x which references the origial str so str is changed by this operation.
When m2 is called, the reference to str is copied and passed to the function which sees it as x. Operator + creates a new string, and the assignment x = x + "4" simply redirects x to the new string leaving the original str variable untouched.
Right?
Thanks

String#+ :: str + other_str → new_str Concatenation—Returns a new String containing other_str concatenated to str.
String#<< :: str << integer → str : Append—Concatenates the given object to str.
<< doesn't create the new object, where as + does.
a = "str"
#=> "str"
a.object_id
#=> 14469636
b = a << "ing"
#=> "string"
a.object_id
#=> 14469636
b.object_id
#=> 14469636
a= "str"
#=> "str"
b = a + "ing"
#=> "string"
a.object_id
#=> 16666584
b.object_id
#=> 17528916
EDIT
From your comment, got your point. See below:
def m1 (x)
x << "4"
end
#=> nil
def m2 (x)
x = x + "4"
end
#=> nil
str="123"
#=> "123"
m2(str)
#=> "1234"
str
#=> "123"
Here str didn't change as you passed the value inside the method m2(), all the changes local to the method as per the above call. Thus below str not showing that change.To see the change you have to call it as below.
str = m2(str)
#=> "1234"
str
#=> "1234"
OR
You could do the stuff as below :- where I passed reference address of str but not the value.
str = "abc"
#=> "abc"
str.object_id
#=> 16250484
ObjectSpace._id2ref(16250484)
#=> "abc"
def m1 (x)
ObjectSpace._id2ref(x) << "4"
end
#=> nil
m1(16250484)
#=> "abc4"
str
#=> "abc4"
Hope it make sense :)
Cheers!

<< the concatenate operator is destructive to a string. This means that it will manipulate the variable it acts upon, not just return the result of the expression.
example:
str = "abc"
puts str + "d" # "abcd"
puts str # "abc"
puts str << "d" # "abcd"
puts str # "abcd"

The following two functions are different, one alters the variable outside the function and one does not.
This is wrong. Neither of the two methods (they are methods, BTW, not functions, Ruby doesn't have functions; there is a fundamental difference) alters the str variable. m1 modifies the object the variable points to, but that is completely different from modifying the variable itself.

Related

Increment alphabetical string in Ruby on rails

Task I want to solve:
Write a program that takes a string, will perform a transformation and return it.
For each of the letters of the parameter string switch it by the next one in alphabetical order.
'z' becomes 'a' and 'Z' becomes 'A'. Case remains unaffected.
def rotone(param_1)
a = ""
param_1.each_char do |x|
if x.count("a-zA-Z") > 0
a << x.succ
else
a << x
end
end
a
end
And I take this:
Input: "AkjhZ zLKIJz , 23y "
Expected Return Value: "BlkiA aMLJKa , 23z "
Return Value: "BlkiAA aaMLJKaa , 23z "
When iterators find 'z' or 'Z' it increment two times z -> aa or Z -> AA
input = "AkjhZ zLKIJz , 23y"
Code
p input.tr('a-yA-YzZ','b-zB-ZaA')
Output
"BlkiA aMLJKa , 23z"
Your problem is that String#succ (aka String#next) has been designed in a way that does not serve your purpose when the receiver is 'z' or 'Z':
'z'.succ #=> 'aa'
'Z'.succ #=> 'AA'
If you replaced a << x.succ with a << x.succ[0] you would obtain the desired result.
You might consider writing that as follows.
def rotone(param_1)
param_1.gsub(/./m) { |c| c.match?(/[a-z]/i) ? c.succ[0] : c }
end
String#gsub's argument is a regular expression that matches every character (so every character is passed to gsub's block)1.
See also String#match?. The regular expression /[a-z]/i matches every character that is one of the characters in the character class [a-z]. The option i makes the match case-independent, so uppercase letters are matched as well.
Here is alternative way to write the method that employs two hashes that are defined as constants.
CODE = [*'a'..'z', *'A'..'Z'].each_with_object({}) do |c,h|
h[c] = c.succ[0]
end.tap { |h| h.default_proc = proc { |_h,k| k } }
#=> {"a"=>"b", "b"=>"c",..., "y"=>"z", "z"=>"a",
# "A"=>"B", "B"=>"C",..., "Y"=>"Z", "Z"=>"A"}
DECODE = CODE.invert.tap { |h| h.default_proc = proc { |_h,k| k } }
#=> {"b"=>"a", "c"=>"b", ..., "z"=>"y", "a"=>"z",
# "B"=>"A", "C"=>"B", ..., "Z"=>"Y", "A"=>"Z"}
For example,
CODE['e'] #=> "f"
CODE['Z'] #=> "A"
CODE['?'] #=> "?"
DECODE['f'] #=> "e"
DECODE['A'] #=> "Z"
DECODE['?'] #=> "?"
Let's try using gsub, CODE and DECODE with an example string.
str = "The quick brown dog Zelda jumped over the lazy fox Arnie"
rts = str.gsub(/./m, CODE)
#=> "Uif rvjdl cspxo eph Afmeb kvnqfe pwfs uif mbaz gpy Bsojf"
rts.gsub(/./m, DECODE)
#=> "The quick brown dog Zelda jumped over the lazy fox Arnie"
See Hash#merge, Object#tap, Hash#default_proc=, Hash#invert and the form of Sting#gsub that takes a hash as its optional second argument.
Adding the default proc to the hash h causes h[k] to return k if h does not have a key k. Had CODE been defined without the default proc,
CODE = [*'a'..'z', *'A'..'Z'].each_with_object({}) { |c,h| h[c] = c.succ[0] }
#=> {"a"=>"b", "b"=>"c",..., "y"=>"z", "z"=>"a",
# "A"=>"B", "B"=>"C",..., "Y"=>"Z", "Z"=>"A"}
gsub would skip over characters that are not letters:
rts = str.gsub(/./m, CODE)
#=> "UifrvjdlcspxoephAfmebkvnqfepwfsuifmbazgpyBsojf"
Without the default proc we would have to write
rts = str.gsub(/./m) { |s| CODE.fetch(s, s) }
#=> "Uif rvjdl cspxo eph Afmeb kvnqfe pwfs uif mbaz gpy Bsojf"
See Hash#fetch.
1. The regular expression /./ matches every character other than line terminators. Adding the option m (/./m) causes . to match line terminators as well.

Keep characters and whitespace in ruby method

Building out a Rot method to solve encryption. I have something that is working but takes out whitespaces and any characters that are included. Was going to use bytes instead of chars then turn it back into a string once I have the byte code but I can't seem to get it working. How would you go about keeping those in place from this code:
code
def rot(x, string, encrypt=true)
alphabet = Array("A".."Z") + Array("a".."z")
results = []
if encrypt == true
key = Hash[alphabet.zip(alphabet.rotate(x))]
string.chars.each do |i|
if ('a'..'z').include? i
results << key.fetch(i).downcase
elsif ('A'..'Z').include? i
results << key.fetch(i).upcase
end
end
return results.join
else
key_false = Hash[alphabet.zip(alphabet.rotate(26 - x))]
string.chars.each do |i|
if ('a'..'z').include? i
results << key_false.fetch(i).downcase
elsif ('A'..'Z').include? i
results << key_false.fetch(i).upcase
end
end
return results.join
end
end
puts rot(10, "Hello, World")
=> RovvyGybvn
puts rot(10, "Rovvy, Gybvn", false)
=> HelloWorld
Thanks for your help in advance!
Just add to both if blocks an else condition like this:
if ('a'..'z').include? i
# ...
elsif ('A'..'Z').include? i
# ...
else
results << i
end
Which will add all non A-z characters untouched to the output.
I've noticed some issues with your code:
Broken replacement hash
This is the biggest problem - your replacement hash is broken. I'm using a smaller alphabet for demonstration purposes, but this applies to 26 characters as well:
uppercase = Array("A".."C")
lowercase = Array("a".."c")
alphabet = uppercase + lowercase
#=> ["A", "B", "C", "a", "b", "c"]
You build the replacement hash via:
x = 1
key = Hash[alphabet.zip(alphabet.rotate(x))]
#=> {"A"=>"B", "B"=>"C", "C"=>"a", "a"=>"b", "b"=>"c", "c"=>"A"}
"C"=>"a" and "c"=>"A" are referring to the wrong character case. This happens because you rotate the entire alphabet at once:
alphabet #=> ["A", "B", "C", "a", "b", "c"]
alphabet.rotate(x) #=> ["B", "C", "a", "b", "c", "A"]
Instead. you have to rotate the uppercase and lowercase letter separately:
uppercase #=> ["A", "B", "C"]
uppercase.rotate(x) #=> ["B", "C", "A"]
lowercase #=> ["a", "b", "c"]
lowercase.rotate(x) #=> ["B", "C", "A"]
and concatenate the rotated parts afterwards. Either:
key = Hash[uppercase.zip(uppercase.rotate(x)) + lowercase.zip(lowercase.rotate(x))]
#=> {"A"=>"B", "B"=>"C", "C"=>"A", "a"=>"b", "b"=>"c", "c"=>"a"}
or:
key = Hash[(uppercase + lowercase).zip(uppercase.rotate(x) + lowercase.rotate(x))]
#=> {"A"=>"B", "B"=>"C", "C"=>"A", "a"=>"b", "b"=>"c", "c"=>"a"}
Replacing the characters
Back to a full alphabet:
uppercase = Array("A".."Z")
lowercase = Array("a".."z")
x = 10
key = Hash[uppercase.zip(uppercase.rotate(x)) + lowercase.zip(lowercase.rotate(x))]
Having a working replacement hash makes replacing the characters almost trivial:
string = "Hello, World!"
result = ""
string.each_char { |char| result << key.fetch(char, char) }
result
#=> "Rovvy, Gybvn!"
I've changed result from an array to a string. It also has a << method and you don't have to join it afterwards.
Hash#fetch works almost like Hash#[], but you can pass a default value that is returned if the key is not found in the hash:
key.fetch("H", "H") #=> "R" (replacement value)
key.fetch("!", "!") #=> "!" (default value)
Handling encryption / decryption
You're duplicating a lot of code to handle the decryption part. But there's a much easier way - just reverse the direction:
rot(10, "Hello") #=> "Rovvy"
rot(10, "Rovvy", false) #=> "Hello"
rot(-10, "Rovvy") #=> "Hello"
So within your code, you can write:
x = -x unless encrypt
Putting it all together
def rot(x, string, encrypt = true)
uppercase = Array("A".."Z")
lowercase = Array("a".."z")
x = -x unless encrypt
key = Hash[uppercase.zip(uppercase.rotate(x)) + lowercase.zip(lowercase.rotate(x))]
result = ""
string.each_char { |char| result << key.fetch(char, char) }
result
end
rot(10, "Hello, World!") #=> "Rovvy, Gybvn!"
rot(10, "Rovvy, Gybvn!", false) #=> "Hello, World!"

Ruby method to reverse string input

I don't get why reversed_string=string[i] + reversed_string puts the last char first. It seems that string[i] would index the first char and not the last. So if the string was "abc" index 0 would be 'a' and not 'c'. Could someone please explain how ruby gets 'c' from index 0? And then, of course, 'b' from index 1? Etc, etc.
Write a method that will take a string as input, and return a new string with the same letters in reverse order.
Difficulty: easy.
def reverse(string)
reversed_string = ""
i = 0
while i < string.length
reversed_string = string[i] + reversed_string
i += 1
end
return reversed_string
end
puts("reverse(\"abc\") == \"cba\": #{reverse("abc") == "cba"}")
puts("reverse(\"a\") == \"a\": #{reverse("a") == "a"}")
puts("reverse(\"\") == \"\": #{reverse("") == ""}")
reversed_string = string[i] + reversed_string
For example, if string is "abc", string[0] is indeed "a", but here it's being put in the beginning of reversed_string, not the end. reversed_string is added up in each iteration as:
"a" + "" #string[0] + "" => "a"
"b" + "a" #string[1] + "a" => "ba"
"c" + "ba" #string[2] + "ba"=> "cba"
Assuming you can't use Ruby Class String's built in Reverse method, you could try the following
def reverse_string(string)
new_string = []
i = string.length-1
while i >= 0
new_string.push(string[i])
i -= 1
end
new_string.join
end
This will create a new string object, but it will reverse the string without using any built-in methods.
As you know, there is a method String#reverse to reverse a string. I understand you are not to use that method, but instead write your own, where the method's argument is the string to be reversed. Others will suggest ways you might do that.
As you are new to Ruby, I thought it might be instructive to show you how you could write a new method for the String class, say, String#my_reverse, that behaves exactly the same as String#reverse. Then for the string "three blind mice", we would have:
"three blind mice".reverse #=> "ecim dnilb eerht"
"three blind mice".my_reverse #=> "ecim dnilb eerht"
To create a method without arguments for the String class, we normally do it like this:
class String
def my_method
...
end
end
We invoke my_method by sending it a receiver that is an instance of the String class. For example, if write:
"three blind mice".my_method
we are sending the method String#my_method to the receiver "three blind mice". Within the definition of the method, the receiver is referred to as self. Here self would be "three blind mice". Similarly, just as the second character (at offset 1) of that string is "three blind mice"[1] #=> "h", self[1] #=> "h". We can check that:
class String
def my_method
puts "I is '#{self}'"
(0...self.size).each { |i| puts self[i] }
end
end
"three blind mice".my_method
would print:
I is 'three blind mice'
t
h
r
e
e
b
...
c
e
The method my_reverse is almost the same:
class String
def my_reverse
sz = self.size
str = ''
(0...sz).each { |i| str << self[sz-1-i] }
str
end
end
"three blind mice".my_reverse
#=> "ecim dnilb eerht"
You can think of self as a variable whose value is the receiver, but unlike a variable, you cannot reassign self to a different object. For example, we can write x = 1; x = 'cat', but we cannot write self = 'cat'. As we have already seen, however, we can change the references self makes to other objects, such as self[1] = 'r'.

Calling specific element from array not returning (Ruby)

I can't tell what's wrong with my code:
def morse_code(str)
string = []
string.push(str.split(' '))
puts string
puts string[2]
end
What I'm expecting is if I use "what is the dog" for str, I would get the following results:
=> ["what", "is", "the", "dog"]
=> "the"
But what I get instead is nil. If I do string[0], it just gives me the entire string again. Does the .split function not break them up into different elements? If anyone could help, that would be great. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Your code should be :
def morse_code(str)
string = []
string.push(*str.split(' '))
puts string
p string[2]
end
morse_code("what is the dog" )
# >> what
# >> is
# >> the
# >> dog
# >> "the"
str.split(' ') is giving ["what", "is", "the", "dog"], and you are pushing this array object to the array string. Thus string became [["what", "is", "the", "dog"]]. Thus string is an array of size 1. Thus if you want to access any index like 1, 2 so on.., you will get nil. You can debug it using p(it calls #inspect on the array), BUT NOT puts.
def morse_code(str)
string = []
string.push(str.split(' '))
p string
end
morse_code("what is the dog" )
# >> [["what", "is", "the", "dog"]]
With Array, puts works completely different way than p. I am not good to read MRI code always, thus I take a look at sometime Rubinious code. Look how they defined IO::puts, which is same as MRI. Now look the specs for the code
it "flattens a nested array before writing it" do
#io.should_receive(:write).with("1")
#io.should_receive(:write).with("2")
#io.should_receive(:write).with("3")
#io.should_receive(:write).with("\n").exactly(3).times
#io.puts([1, 2, [3]]).should == nil
end
it "writes nothing for an empty array" do
x = []
#io.should_receive(:write).exactly(0).times
#io.puts(x).should == nil
end
it "writes [...] for a recursive array arg" do
x = []
x << 2 << x
#io.should_receive(:write).with("2")
#io.should_receive(:write).with("[...]")
#io.should_receive(:write).with("\n").exactly(2).times
#io.puts(x).should == nil
end
We can now be sure that, IO::puts or Kernel::puts behaves with array just the way, as Rubinious people implemented it. You can now take a look at the MRI code also. I just found the MRI one, look the below test
def test_puts_recursive_array
a = ["foo"]
a << a
pipe(proc do |w|
w.puts a
w.close
end, proc do |r|
assert_equal("foo\n[...]\n", r.read)
end)
end

Why is the splat/unary operator changing the assigned value a when p is called before *a = ""?

To give a little context around how I understand the problem.
Using splat collect on a string sends :to_a or :to_ary to the String
class String
def method_missing method, *args, &block
p method #=> :to_ary
p args #=> []
p block #=> nil
end
end
*b = "b"
So I was thinking that redefining the :to_ary method would be what I'm after.
class String
def to_ary
["to_a"]
end
end
p *a = "a" #=> "a"
p a #=> "a"
*b = "b"
p b #=> ["to_a"]
Now this confuses me to no end.
Printing the result from the *a = "a" changes the value assigned to a?
To demonstrate further
class String
def to_ary
[self.upcase!]
end
end
p *a = "a" #=> "a"
p a #=> "a"
*b = "b"
p b #=> ["B"]
Very interesting question! Ruby takes this expression:
p *a = "a"
and translates it to something like this:
temp = (a = "a")
p *temp
So the first thing that happens is that a gets assigned to "a", and then the result of the assignment expression which is "a" gets splatted and sent to p. Since p's default behaviour when sent multiple arguments is just to iterate over and print each one, you only see "a" appear.
In short, it follows a "assign then splat" order of evaluation. So a gets assigned to "a" before the string gets splatted.
When you don't have a function call however, it is interpreted as something like this:
# *a = "a" gets interpreted as:
temp = "a"
a = *temp
This follows a "splat then assign" order of evaluation. So a gets assigned after the string gets splatted.
You can see what's being received by a function by going like this:
def foo *args
puts args.inspect
end
foo *a = "a" # outputs ["a"]
a # outputs "a"
Hope this clears up what's going on!
In short (thanks to Mark Reed):
p *a = "a" # interpreted as: p(*(a = "a"))
*a = "a" # interpreted as: a = *("a")

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