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Closed 10 years ago.
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Shorter way to pass every element of an array to a function
I know this will work:
def inc(a)
a+1
end
[1,2,3].map{|a| inc a}
but in Python, I just need to write:
map(inc, [1,2,3])
or
[inc(x) for x in [1,2,3])
I was wondering whether I can skip the steps of making a block in Ruby, and did this:
[1,2,3].map inc
# => ArgumentError: wrong number of arguments (0 for 1)
# from (irb):19:in `inc'
Does anyone have ideas about how to do this?
According to "Passing Methods like Blocks in Ruby", you can pass a method as a block like so:
p [1,2,3].map(&method(:inc))
Don't know if that's much better than rolling your own block, honestly.
If your method is defined on the class of the objects you're using, you could do this:
# Adding inc to the Integer class in order to relate to the original post.
class Integer
def inc
self + 1
end
end
p [1,2,3].map(&:inc)
In that case, Ruby will interpret the symbol as an instance method name and attempt to call the method on that object.
The reason you can pass a function name as a first-class object in Python, but not in Ruby, is because Ruby allows you to call a method with zero arguments without parentheses. Python's grammar, since it requires the parentheses, prevents any possible ambiguity between passing in a function name and calling a function with no arguments.
Does not answer your question but if you really just want to increment all your variables, you have Integer#next
4.next
#=> 5
[1,2,3].map(&:next)
#=> [2, 3, 4]
Related
class MyClass
extend Forwardable
def_delegators :#broker, :add
def subscribe_in_broker
#subscribers.map(&method(:add))
end
end
In this example #subscribers is a Hash and #broker.add takes two arguments: def broker(k,v).
This causes ArgumentError: wrong number of arguments (given 1, expected 2)
Is there a way to use Forwardable or a similar solution without this problem? How can I easily delegate an Array with 2 elements to a method which takes two arguments? What would be the equivalent of writing:
def subscribe_in_broker
#subscribers.map{|k,v| add(k,v) }
end
but using delegation?
It might seem like the block is receiving 2 arguments, but it is actually receiving only a single argument (a 2-element array). Ruby is interpreting the |x, y| as if it was |(x, y)|. The parentheses (which can be omitted here) destructure the single argument into its two pieces.
When you use a & with a method, it also only gets only 1 argument, and if you want to destructure it, you have to be explicit by using a set of parentheses around x and y:
def add((x,y))
end
To be clear, this is a single-argument method that expects the argument to be an array. For example, you call it like this: add([1, 2])
Note: this has nothing to do with delegation, just the fact that Ruby assumes you intend to destructure in one place, while not in another.
It is possible to yield more than one argument to a block (or a method turned into a proc with '&'), but that is not what map does.
It's not obvious to me why hash.map { |x,y| add(x, y) } is not adequate for your purposes. To work around that, you'd need to define your own map function that yields 2 arguments instead of 1, and that seems like overkill for this.
This question already has answers here:
Is there a way to access method arguments in Ruby?
(11 answers)
Closed 5 years ago.
Is there a way to get method parameters names and values dynamically, maybe a metaprogramming?
def my_method(name, age)
# some code that solves this issue
end
my_method('John', 22) # => { name: 'John', age: 22 }
I want to use this in all my methods in order to log methods calls and respective parameters, but without to do this manually in every method.
Thanks.
Yup! In ruby, it's called the binding, which is an object that encapsulates the context in which a particular line runs. The full docs are here, but in the case of what you're trying to do...
def my_method(arg1, arg2)
var = arg2
p binding.local_variables #=> [:arg1, :arg2, :var]
p binding.local_variable_get(:arg1) #=> 1
p Hash[binding.local_variables.map{|x| [x, binding.local_variable_get(x)]}] #=> {:arg1 => 1, :arg2 => 2, :var => 2}
end
my_method(1, 2)
I'd strongly advise against Binding#eval, if you can possibly help it. There's almost always a better way to sovle problems than by using eval. Be aware that binding encapsulates context on the line at which it is called, so if you were hoping to have a simple log_parameters_at_this_point method, you'll either need to pass the binding into that method, or use something cleverer like binding_of_caller
This question already has answers here:
What does map(&:name) mean in Ruby?
(17 answers)
Closed 6 years ago.
Why does:
[1,2,3,4,5].map(&:to_s) #=> ["1", "2", "3", "4", "5"]
work but:
[1,2,3,4,5].map(&:*(2))
throws an unexpected syntax error?
& is called the to_proc operator. It calls the to_proc method on the expression that follows it and then passes the resulting Proc to the method as a block.
In the case of &:to_s, :to_s is a Symbol, so it the operator calls Symbol#to_proc. The docs are a little garbled, but suffice it to say that these two expressions are more-or-less equivalent:
my_proc = :to_s.to_proc
my_proc = Proc.new {|obj| obj.to_s }
So the answer to the question "Why doesn't &:*(2) work?" is that the expression that follows the & operator, :*(2), isn't a valid Ruby expression. It makes about as much sense to the Ruby parser as "hello"(2).
There is, by the way, a way to do what you're trying to do:
[1,2,3,4,5].map(&2.method(:*))
# => [2, 4, 6, 8, 10]
In the above code, 2.method(:*) returns a reference to the * method of the object 2 as a Method object. Method objects behave a lot like Proc objects, and they respond to to_proc. However, the above isn't exactly equivalent—it does 2 * n rather than n * 2 (a distinction that doesn't matter if n is also a Numeric)—and it's not any more succinct or readable than {|n| n * 2 }, and so rarely worth the trouble.
Ampersand and object (&:method)
The & operator can also be used to pass an object as a block to a method, as in the following example:
arr = [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ]
arr.map { |n| n.to_s }
arr.map &:to_s
Both the examples above have the same result. In both, the map method takes the arr array and a block, then it runs the block on each element of the array. The code inside the block runs to_s on each element, converting it from integers to strings. Then, the map method returns a new array containing the converted items.
The first example is common and widely used. The second example may look a bit cryptic at first glance. Let's see what's happening:
In Ruby, items prefixed with colon (:) are symbols. If you are not familiar with the Symbol class/data type, I suggest you Google it and read a couple of articles before continuing. All method names in Ruby are internally stored as symbols. By prefixing a method name with a colon, we are not converting the method into a symbol, neither are we calling the method, we are just passing the name of the method around (referencing the method). In the example above, we are passing :to_s, which is a reference to the to_s method, to the ampersand (&) operator, which will create a proc (by calling to_proc under the hood). The proc takes a value as an argument, calls to_s on it and returns the value converted into a string.
Although the :to_s symbol is always the same, when running the map loop, it will refer to the to_s method of the class corresponding to each array item. If we passed an array such as [ 21, 4.453, :foobar, ] to the map method, the to_s method of the Fixnum class would be applied (called) on the first item, the to_s method of the Float class would be applied to the second item and the to_s method of the Symbol class would be applied to the third item. This makes sense because we are not passing the actual to_s method to the ampersand operator, just its name.
Below is an example of creating a proc that takes an argument, calls a method on it and returns the result of the method.
p = :upcase.to_proc
p.call("foo bar")
Output:
=> "FOO BAR"
Let's review what is going on in arr.map &:to_s
At each iteration of map, one item of the array (an integer) is passed to &:to_s
The :to_s symbol (which is a reference to the to_s method) is passed to the & operator, which creates a proc that will take an argument (an array item), call to_s on the argument and return the value converted into string;
The map method returns a new array containing the strings "1", "2", "3", "4" and "5".
This question already has answers here:
Can you supply arguments to the map(&:method) syntax in Ruby?
(9 answers)
Closed 8 years ago.
I often write:
some_array.each { |array_element| array_element.some_method(args) }
Why not have an option for an implicit yield so you could write e.g.:
some_array.each { _.some_method(args) }
I am not sure what character _ should actually be, and I imagine it would only be used in the most boilerplate setting, where you're dealing with a one-dimensional array and just trying to yield each item to the block in succession. It would save a lot of redundant typing.
Are you familiar with #to_proc and the & syntax for method calls? They cover some cases similar to the one you show here. For example:
[1, -2, -4].map(&:abs) => [1, 2, 4]
The & is used to pass an object in place of a block. If the object isn't a Proc, #to_proc is automatically called on it to get a Proc before it is used in place of the block. Symbol#to_proc returns a Proc which behaves like: { |obj, *args| obj.symbol_name(*args) }.
In your example, you use args which are presumably captured from the surrounding lexical environment. Symbol#to_proc won't help you there. But it wouldn't be hard to make a new Proc-building method which would. For example:
class Symbol
def with_args(*args)
Proc.new { |x| x.send(self, *args) }
end
end
Then you could do:
some_array.each(&:some_method.with_args(args))
Whether that is any better than an explicit block is up to you. In any case, this is a technique you should be aware of.
This question already has answers here:
How to sum array of numbers in Ruby?
(16 answers)
Closed 10 years ago.
I'm trying to write code that will take an array and give back the SUM of the array.
First, is this the correct way to place the numbers into an array? It seems like there may be a problem with that based on the error.
def total(num)
x = []
x << num
puts x.inject(0){|a,b|a+b}
end
Looks like a have a few problems here. First, I get this error when I call the method with sum([3,2,41,2]):
`total': wrong number of arguments (5 for 1) (ArgumentError) from calculator.rb:11
I also recall getting a error: cant't covert fixnum into array
Your inject block is correct. Your argument error arises because you defined the method to take a single argument, but in your example, you call it with four arguments. If you want to use a variable number of arguments, you can use the splat operator *, which does various things- in this case, it will gather all undefined arguments into an array:
def total(*nums)
nums.inject(0) {|a,b| a + b }
end
total(3,2,41,2) #=> 48
You can further simplify this using a symbol with inject:
nums.inject(0, :+) #=> 48
This works by sending the method denoted by the symbol to the accumulator, using each member of the array as an argument (equivalent to defining the block as {|a, b| a.send(:+, b) }).
And actually in this case, you don't need to define an initial value. Inject has a third form that will simply use the first member of the array as the initial value and sum the others onto it:
nums.inject(:+)