replacing referenced Integer value in Ruby like String#replace does - ruby

i have following code:
def mymethod(a)
a.replace("a")
end
mystring = "b"
mymethod(mystring)
p mystring # => "a"
but i want to perform same with Integer
is that possible?

Short answer: no.
Long answer: no, it's not possible. Integer is a type primitive enough to not have state (and state modifying operations). Every operation on integer generates a new integer.
Probably, if you drop down to C level, you could be able to modify underlying value in-place. But I'm not sure. Anyway, this seems like an overkill and a wrong thing to do.

-1 for "wrong thing to do". This can be a perfectly reasonable issue -- I need to do this right now: multiple objects need a shared counter.
It seems to me that the best way is to create a wrapper class and have the integer as an instance variable:
class Counter
def initialize(i = 0)
#i = i
end
def get
#i
end
def set(i)
#i = i
end
def inc(delta = 1)
#i += delta
end
end

Related

Dynamically creating objects in Ruby

I have a class whose initialize method defines a few instance variables and does some calculations. I need to create about 60 objects of that class. Each object has an ID number at the end. E.g.:
object1 = Dynamic.new(x, y)
object2 = Dynamic.new(x, y)
object3 = Dynamic.new(x, y)
...
I could just define them all by hand, but that would be quite inefficient. Is there any way to dynamically create each object?
You can always make a loop and push all the objects into an array. An array position might also be needed for knowing which object is each. This isn't quite what you wanted (atleast I don't think so), but it should suffice.
class Dynamic
##instances_of_class = 0
def initialize(x,y)
#...
#array_position = ##instances_of_class
##instances_of_class += 1
end
end
ary = []
50.times do
ary << Dynamic.new(x,y)
end
Edit: This solution, as said in the comments, can cause bugs if you change the array, so here's an alternate solution.
require 'File.rb'
i = 1
varFile = File.open("File.rb","a+")
50.times do
varFile.puts "variable#{i} = Object.new"
i += 1
end
Inside of File.rb will be 50 uniquely named variables that you can use.
I would be curious to know why you need this. It's an unusual requirement, and often that means that you can avoid the problem instead of solving it. I think TheLuigi's solution would work, but if you use a class variable then these Id's will be shared across multiple classes. You can instead use an instance variable, with something like the following:
class A
def self.next_id
#id ||= 0 ; #id += 1
end
def initialize
#id = A.next_id
end
end
A.new
# => #<A:0x007fd6d414c640 #id=1>
A.new
# => #<A:0x007fd6d41454a8 #id=2>
If you just want sixty objects accessible from a variable, you should have them in an array referred to by a single variable.
objects = Array.new(60){Dynamic.new(x, y)}
Your object1, object2, ... will correspond to objects[0], objects[1], ... respectively.

Ruby - Invoking a class from a CONSTANT that contains the class name

I have a class that calls different suppliers to find if an item is available. How do I execute the class that each constant returns?
class ItemProvider
ADAPTER_ONE = Providers::ItemFromSupplierOne
ADAPTER_TWO = Providers::ItemFromSupplierTwo
def get_item(item)
id = ItemDetail.new(item)
%w(ADAPTER_ONE ADAPTER_TWO).each do |provider|
item_detail = provider.new(id)
break if item_detail.valid?
end
item_detail
end
Your problem is that you aren't making an array that contains the constants' values; you're making an array with the strings "ADAPTER_ONE" and "ADAPTER_TWO". The %w() syntax always makes an array of strings — it doesn't resolve variable names.
What you want is to change your get_item code to something like this:
def get_item(item)
id = ItemDetail.new(item)
[ADAPTER_ONE, ADAPTER_TWO].each do |provider|
item_detail = provider.new(id)
break item_detail if item_detail.valid?
end or nil # break automatically makes the block return the value you break with
end
As an aside, personally, I think I'd rewrite it like this:
def get_item(item)
id = ItemDetail.new(item)
[ADAPTER_ONE, ADAPTER_TWO].map {|provider| provider.new(id) }.find &:valid?
end
Yup you have an array of strings not constants but if you want to go down that road in using classes from strings well it will be nice if you look at http://blog.sidu.in/2008/02/loading-classes-from-strings-in-ruby.html#.UuGdmGQ1i2w .Maybe it is not directly related to your problem but it is a good read.

Plus equals with ruby send message

I'm getting familiar with ruby send method, but for some reason, I can't do something like this
a = 4
a.send(:+=, 1)
For some reason this doesn't work. Then I tried something like
a.send(:=, a.send(:+, 1))
But this doesn't work too. What is the proper way to fire plus equals through 'send'?
I think the basic option is only:
a = a.send(:+, 1)
That is because send is for messages to objects. Assignment modifies a variable, not an object.
It is possible to assign direct to variables with some meta-programming, but the code is convoluted, so far the best I can find is:
a = 1
var_name = :a
eval "#{var_name} = #{var_name}.send(:+, 1)"
puts a # 2
Or using instance variables:
#a = 2
var_name = :#a
instance_variable_set( var_name, instance_variable_get( var_name ).send(:+, 1) )
puts #a # 3
See the below :
p 4.respond_to?(:"+=") # false
p 4.respond_to?(:"=") # false
p 4.respond_to?(:"+") # true
a+=1 is syntactic sugar of a = a+1. But there is no direct method +=. = is an assignment operator,not the method as well. On the other hand Object#send takes method name as its argument. Thus your code will not work,the way you are looking for.
It is because Ruby doesn't have = method. In Ruby = don't work like in C/C++ but it rather assign new object reference to variable, not assign new value to variable.
You can't call a method on a, because a is not an object, it's a variable, and variables aren't objects in Ruby. You are calling a method on 4, but 4 is not the thing you want to modify, a is. It's just not possible.
Note: it is certainly possible to define a method named = or += and call it, but of course those methods will only exist on objects, not variables.
class Fixnum
define_method(:'+=') do |n| self + n end
end
a = 4
a.send(:'+=', 1)
# => 5
a
# => 4
This might miss the mark a bit, but I was trying to do this where a is actually a method dynamically called on an object. For example, with attributes like added_count and updated_count for Importer I wrote the following
class Importer
attr_accessor :added_count, :updated_count
def increment(method)
send("#{method}=", (send(method) + 1))
end
end
So I could use importer.increment(:added_count) or importer.increment(:updated_count)
Now this may seem silly if you only have these 2 different counters but in some cases we have a half dozen or more counters and different conditions on which attr to increment so it can be handy.

Ruby min max assignment operators

When programming ruby I always find myself doing this:
a = [a, b].min
This means compare a and b and store the smallest value in a. I don't like writing the code above as I have to write a twice.
I know that some non-standard dialects of C++ had an operator which did exactly this
a <?= b
Which I find very convenient. But I'm not really interested in the operator as much as I'm in the feature of avoiding repetition. I would also be happy if I could write
a.keep_max(b)
a can be a quite long variable, like my_array[indice1][indice2], and you don't want to write that twice.
I did alot of googling on this and found no result, hopefully this question will pop up and be useful for others aswell.
So, is there any non-repeitive way to express what I want in ruby?
What you would like to do is in fact not possible in ruby (see this question). I think the best you can do is
def max(*args)
args.max
end
a = max a, b
I don't understand your question. You can always do something like this ...
module Comparable
def keep_min(other)
(self <=> other) <= 0 ? self : other
end
def keep_max(other)
(self <=> other) >= 0 ? self : other
end
end
1.keep_min(2)
=> 1
1.keep_max(2)
=> 2
Well, that won't work for all objects with <=> because not all of them are implementing Comparable, so you could monkey-patch Object.
Personally I prefer clarity and tend to avoid monkey-patching. Plus, this clearly is a binary predicate, just like "+", therefore method-chaining doesn't necessarily make sense so I prefer something like this to get rid of that array syntax:
def min(*args)
args.min
end
def max(*args)
args.max
end
min(1, 2)
=> 1
max(1, 2)
=> 2
But hey, I'm also a Python developer :-)
You can define your own method for it:
class Object
def keep_max(other)
[self, other].max
end
end
a = 3
b = 7
puts a.keep_max(b)
But you should be careful defining methods on Object as it can have unpredictable behaviour (for example, if objects cannot be compared).
def keep_max(var, other, binding)
eval "#{var} = [#{var}, #{other}].max", binding
end
a = 5
b = 78
keep_max(:a, :b, binding)
puts a
#=> 78
This basically does what you want. Take a look at Change variable passed in a method

ruby and references. Working with fixnums

I know a bit about ruby way to handle objects and references. The replace stuff, ect ...
I know it d'ont work on fixnum, cause the var is the fixnum. But i wish to change the value of a fixnum inside a function, and that the value changed in the ouside var.
How can i do this ?
I guess i can use a string like this "1" but that's quite dirty.
Ruby will always pass-by-reference (because everything is an object) but Fixnum lacks any methods that allow you to mutate the value. See "void foo(int &x) -> Ruby? Passing integers by reference?" for more details.
You can either return a value that you then assign to your variable, like so:
a = 5
def do_something(value)
return 1 #this could be more complicated and depend on the value passed in
end
a = do_something(a)
or you could wrap your value in an object such as a Hash and have it updated that way.
a = {:value => 5}
def do_something(dict)
dict[:value] = 1
end
do_something(a) #now a[:value] is 1 outside the function
Hope this helps.
You could pass an array with a single number, like [1], or a hash like {value: 1}. Less ugly than a string, as your number itself remains a number, but less overhead than a new class...
When I was building a game I had the same problem you have. There was a numeric score that represented how many zombies you've killed and I needed to manually keep it in sync between Player (that incremented the score), ScoreBar and ScoreScreen (that displayed the score). The solution I've found was creating a separate class for the score that will wrap the value and mutate it:
class Score
def initialize(value = 0)
#value = value
end
def increment
#value += 1
end
def to_i
#value
end
def to_s
#value.to_s
end
end

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