Ruby: how to find the next match in an array - ruby

I have to search an item in an array and return the value of the next item. Example:
a = ['abc.df','-f','test.h']
i = a.find_index{|x| x=~/-f/}
puts a[i+1]
Is there any better way other than working with index?

A classical functional approach uses no indexes (xs.each_cons(2) -> pairwise combinations of xs):
xs = ['abc.df', '-f', 'test.h']
(xs.each_cons(2).detect { |x, y| x =~ /-f/ } || []).last
#=> "test.h"
Using Enumerable#map_detect simplifies it a litte bit more:
xs.each_cons(2).map_detect { |x, y| y if x =~ /-f/ }
#=> "test.h"

The reason something like array.find{something}.next doesn't exist is that it's an array rather than a linked list. Each item is just it's own value; it doesn't have a concept of "the item after me".
#tokland gives a good solution by iterating over the array with each pair of consecutive items, so that when the first item matches, you have your second item handy. There are strong arguments to be made for the functional style, to be sure. Your version is shorter, though, and I'd argue that yours is also more quickly and easily understood at a glance.
If the issue is that you're using it a lot and want something cleaner and more to the point, then of course you could just add it as a singleton method to a:
def a.find_after(&test)
self[find_index(&test).next]
end
Then
a.find_after{|x| x=~/-f/}
is a clear way to find the next item after the first match.
All of that said, I think #BenjaminCox makes the best point about what appears to be your actual goal. If you're parsing command line options, there are libraries that do that well.

I don't know of a cleaner way to do that specific operation. However, it sure looks like you're trying to parse command-line arguments. If so, I'd recommend using the built-in OptionParser module - it'll save a ton of time and hair-pulling trying to parse them yourself.
This article explains how it works.

Your solution working with indexes is fine, as others have commented. You could use Enumerable#drop_while to get an array from your match on and take the second element of that:
a = ['abc.df','-f','test.h']
f_arg = a.drop_while { |e| e !~ /-f/ }[1]

Related

Ruby: Array each loop, save other elements of original array in new array

I am currently trying to compare every element of an array with the others (in Ruby). Those elements are objects of a class. I need to find similarities between them. My idea was to loop through the original array and in this loop creating a new array containing the other elements (not the one of the outer loop) and then loop through this second array and compare every item with the one in the outer each loop.
Here is some pseudocode:
originalArray.each{
|origElement|
tempArray = createNewArray from original array without origElement
tempArray.each{
|differentElement|
Compare origElement with differentElement
}
}
How can I create that tempArray?
I think you should use Array#permutation for this
original_array.permutation(2) { |elements| Compare elements[0] with elements[1] }
First, I want to say bjhaid's answer is beautiful and for your specific instance, it is the one that should be used.
However, I wanted to provide a more general answer that answers the direct question you asked: "How can I create that tempArray?"
If you wanted to delete all values that are equal to the element in the original array, you could simply do:
tempArray = originalArray - [origElement]
However, if you only want to delete that element, you could do:
originalArray.each_with_index {
|origElement, index|
tempArray = originalArray.dup
tempArray.delete_at(index)
tempArray.each{
|differentElement|
Compare origElement with differentElement
}
}
Also, a note on styling. You probably want to use underscores instead of CamelCase for all methods/variables. In the Ruby community, CamelCase is typically reserved for class / module names. You also probably want to keep the "piped-in" variables (called block arguments) on the same line as the beginning of the block. It is certainly not a requirement, but it is an almost universal convention in the Ruby community.
This code snippet would be much more familiar and readable to your typical Ruby dev:
original_array.each_with_index do |orig_element, index|
temp_array = original_array.dup
temp_array.delete_at(index)
temp_array.each do |different_element|
Compare orig_element with different_element
end
end

How to recurse through arrays in Ruby

I'm trying to use the two following methods to recursively traverse arrays of arrays until the bottom and then come back up with the match results.
You know how in a tennis tournament they start with 32 matches and pair by pair the winner moves ahead, and at the end there's only one winner? That's what I want to replicate in Ruby.
I created a match_winner that always returns the first array for the sake of simplicity. Then, I send the whole tournament array into winner that calls itself recursively until it finds a simple array corresponding to a single match.
def match_winner(array_of_arrays)
return array_of_arrays[0]
end
def winner(tournament)
if tournament[0][0].is_a?(String)
return match_winner(tournament)
else
tournament.each{|e|
winner(e)
}
end
end
tournament = [
[["one", "two"],["three", "four"]],
[["five", "six"],["seven", "eight"]]
]
puts winner(tournament).inspect
Which outputs:
[[["one", "two"], ["three", "four"]], [["five", "six"], ["seven", "eight"]]]
I tried different permutations and variations on this algorithm but I couldn't make it work correctly and return only the final winner.
Does anyone see anything obviously wrong here?
Now I'm calling winner.
I know that the question looks like it's answered, but I just did the same problem and I have to say that simply changing each to map didn't work for me, because, as the code posted, the result is an array of the first-round winners. What worked for me is:
def winner(tournament)
if tournament[0][0].is_a?(String)
return match_winner(tournament)
else
tournament.map!{|e| #use map!, because we need to apply winner() to new values
e=winner(e) #assign new value somewhere, so recursion can climb back
}
end
end
Maybe more experienced developers can explain why that is. Without these two tips it won't work.
And yes, I know "bang" is a bad coding style, danger danger high voltage, but it's my second day with Ruby and I wanted to get this to work.
And, to understand recursion, you have to understand recursion.
Looks like you want map, not each, and, as a commenter above notes, you didn't call winner in the above code.
When you call:
tournament.each {...}
that method actually returns the tournament, which is thus what winner returns.
What you want is to replace it with
tournament.map {...}
which returns a new array consisting of calling "winner" on each element of tournament.
Assuming you have 2^n number of games always and match_winner works ok:
def winner(game)
if game[0][0][0] == game[0][0][0][0]
match_winner( [ game[0], game[1] ] )
else
match_winner( [winner(game[0]), winner(game[1])] )
end
end

How do you modify array mapping data structure resultant from Ruby map?

I believe that I may be missing something here, so please bear with me as I explain two scenarios in hopes to reconcile my misunderstanding:
My end goal is to create a dataset that's acceptable by Highcharts via lazy_high_charts, however in this quest, I'm finding that it is rather particular about the format of data that it receives.
A) I have found that when data is formatted like this going into it, it draws the points just fine:
[0.0000001240,0.0000000267,0.0000000722, ..., 0.0000000512]
I'm able to generate an array like this simply with:
array = Array.new
data.each do |row|
array.push row[:datapoint1].to_f
end
B) Yet, if I attempt to use the map function, I end up with a result like and Highcharts fails to render this data:
[[6.67e-09],[4.39e-09],[2.1e-09],[2.52e-09], ..., [3.79e-09]]
From code like:
array = data.map{|row| [(row.datapoint1.to_f)] }
Is there a way to coax the map function to produce results in B that more akin to the scenario A resultant data structure?
This get's more involved as I have to also add datetime into this, however that's another topic and I just want to understand this first and what can be done to perhaps further control where I'm going.
Ultimately, EVEN SCENARIO B SHOULD WORK according to the data in the example here: http://www.highcharts.com/demo/spline-irregular-time (press the "View options" button at bottom)
Heck, I'll send you a sucker in the mail if you can fill me in on that part! ;)
You can fix arrays like this
[[6.67e-09],[4.39e-09],[2.1e-09],[2.52e-09], ..., [3.79e-09]]
that have nested arrays inside them by using the flatten method on the array.
But you should be able to avoid generating nested arrays in the first place. Just remove the square brackets from your map line:
array = data.map{|row| row.datapoint1.to_f }
Code
a = [[6.67e-09],[4.39e-09],[2.1e-09],[2.52e-09], [3.79e-09]]
b = a.flatten.map{|el| "%.10f" % el }
puts b.inspect
Output
["0.0000000067", "0.0000000044", "0.0000000021", "0.0000000025", "0.0000000038"]
Unless I, too, am missing something, your problem is that you're returning a single-element array from your block (thereby creating an array of arrays) instead of just the value. This should do you:
array = data.map {|row| row.datapoint1.to_f }
# => [ 6.67e-09, 4.39e-09, 2.1e-09, 2.52e-09, ..., 3.79e-09 ]

Summarize object area with a Hash in Ruby

require 'sketchup'
entities = Sketchup.active_model.entities
summa = Hash.new
for face in entities
next unless face.kind_of? Sketchup::Face
if (face.material)
summa[face.material.display_name] += face.area
end
end
I'm trying to get the structure in the array as such:
summa { "Bricks" => 500, "Planks" => 4000 }
By the way, I'm making a ruby script for Google Sketchup
But if I run this code I only get
Error: #<NoMethodError: undefined method `+' for nil:NilClass>
C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google SketchUp 7\Plugins\test.rb:17
C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google SketchUp 7\Plugins\test.rb:14:in `each'
C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google SketchUp 7\Plugins\test.rb:14
C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google SketchUp 7\Plugins\test.rb:8:in `call'
As I'm used to using PHP and just doing $array['myownassoc'] += bignumber;
But I guess this isn't the right approach when using Ruby?
So any help in how I need to go would be nice.
The problem is this:
summa[face.material.display_name] += face.area
This is (roughly) equivalent to
summa[face.material.display_name] = summa[face.material.display_name] + face.area
However, you start out with summa as an empty hash:
summa = Hash.new
Which means that whenever you encounter a specific material for the first time (and obviously, this is going to be already the case in the very first iteration of the loop), summa[face.material.display_name] simply doesn't exist. So, you are trying to add a number to something that doesn't exist, which obviously cannot work.
The quick fix would be to just initialize the hash with a default value, so that it returns something useful instead of nil for a non-existing key:
summa = Hash.new(0)
There are, however, a lot of other improvements that could be made to the code. Here's how I would do it:
require 'sketchup'
Sketchup.active_model.entities.grep(Sketchup::Face).select(&:material).
reduce(Hash.new(0)) {|h, face|
h.tap {|h| h[face.material.display_name] += face.area }
}
I find that much easier to read, instead of "loop over this, but skip one iteration if that thing happens, and also don't do this if that happens".
This is actually a common pattern, that pretty much every Rubyist has already written a dozen times, so I actually had a code snippet lying around that I only needed to slightly adapt. However, I am going to show you how I could have refactored your original code step-by-step if I hadn't already had the solution.
First, let's start with coding style. I know it's boring, but it is important. What the actual coding style is, is not important, the important thing is that the code is consistent, which means that one piece of code should look the same as any other piece of code. In this particular instance, you are asking the Ruby community to provide you with unpaid support, so it is polite to at least format the code in a style that members of that community are used to. This means standard Ruby coding style: 2 spaces for indentation, snake_case for method and variable names, CamelCase for constants which refer to modules or classes, ALL_CAPS for constants, and so on. Don't use parentheses unless they clear up the precedence.
In your code, for example, you use sometimes 3 spaces, sometimes 4 spaces, sometimes 5 spaces and sometimes 6 spaces for indentation, and all of that in just 9 non-empty lines of code! Your coding style is not only inconsistent with the rest of the community, it isn't even consistent with its own next line!
Let's fix that first:
require 'sketchup'
entities = Sketchup.active_model.entities
summa = {}
for face in entities
next unless face.kind_of? Sketchup::Face
if face.material
summa[face.material.display_name] += face.area
end
end
Ah, much better.
As I already mentioned, the first thing we need to do, is fix the obvious problem: replace summa = {} (which BTW would be the idiomatic way to write it) with summa = Hash.new(0). Now, the code at least works.
As a next step, I would switch the assignment of the two local variables: first you assign entities, then you assign summa, then you do something with entities and you have to look three lines up to figure out what entities was. If you switch the two, the usage and the assignment of entities are right next to each other.
As a result, we see that entities is assigned, then immediately used and then never used again. I don't think this improves readability much, so we can get rid of it altogether:
for face in Sketchup.active_model.entities
Next comes the for loop. Those are highly un-idiomatic in Ruby; Rubyists strongly prefer internal iterators. So, let's switch to one:
Sketchup.active_model.entities.each {|face|
next unless face.kind_of? Sketchup::Face
if face.material
summa[face.material.display_name] += face.area
end
}
One advantage this has, is that now face is local to the body of the loop, whereas before, it was leaking out into the surrounding scope. (In Ruby, only module bodies, class bodies, method bodies, block bodies and script bodies have their own scope; for and while loop bodies as well as if/unless/case expressions don't.)
Let's get on to the body of the loop.
The first line is a guard clause. That's good, I like guard clauses :-)
The second line is, well, if face.material is true-ish, it does something otherwise it does nothing, which means the loop is over. So, it's another guard clause! However, it is written in a totally different style than the first guard clause, directly one line above it! Again, consistency is important:
Sketchup.active_model.entities.each {|face|
next unless face.kind_of? Sketchup::Face
next unless face.material
summa[face.material.display_name] += face.area
}
Now we have two guard clauses right next to each other. Let's simplify the logic:
Sketchup.active_model.entities.each {|face|
next unless face.kind_of? Sketchup::Face && face.material
summa[face.material.display_name] += face.area
}
But now there is only one single guard clause guarding only one single expression. So, we can just make the whole expression itself conditional:
Sketchup.active_model.entities.each {|face|
summa[face.material.display_name] += face.area if
face.kind_of? Sketchup::Face && face.material
}
However, that's still kind of ugly: we are looping over some collection, and then inside the loop we skip over all the items we don't want to loop over. So, if we don't want to loop over them, we do we loop over them in the first place? We don't we just select the "interesting" items first and then loop over just them?
Sketchup.active_model.entities.select {|e|
e.kind_of? Sketchup::Face && e.material
}.each {|face|
summa[face.material.display_name] += face.area
}
We can do some simplification on this. If we realize that o.kind_of? C is the same as C === o, then we can use the grep filter which uses === to pattern match, instead of select:
Sketchup.active_model.entities.grep(Sketchup::Face).select {|e| e.material
}.each { … }
Our select filter can further be simplified by using Symbol#to_proc:
Sketchup.active_model.entities.grep(Sketchup::Face).select(&:material).each { … }
Now let's get back to the loop. Anybody who has some experience in a higher-order language such as Ruby, JavaScript, Python, C++ STL, C#, Visual Basic.NET, Smalltalk, Lisp, Scheme, Clojure, Haskell, Erlang, F#, Scala, … basically any modern language at all, will immediately recognize this pattern as a catamorphism, reduce, fold, inject:into:, inject or whatever your language of choice happens to call it.
What a reduce does, is basically it "reduces" several things into just one thing. The most obvious example is the sum of a list of numbers: it reduces several numbers into just one number:
[4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42].reduce(0) {|accumulator, number| accumulator += number }
[Note: in idiomatic Ruby, this would be written just as [4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42].reduce(:+).]
One way to spot a reduce lurking behind a loop is to look for the following pattern:
accumulator = something # create an accumulator before the loop
collection.each {|element|
# do something with the accumulator
}
# now, accumulator contains the result of what we were looking for
In this case, the accumulator is the summa hash.
Sketchup.active_model.entities.grep(Sketchup::Face).select(&:material).
reduce(Hash.new(0)) {|h, face|
h[face.material.display_name] += face.area
h
}
Last but not least, I don't like this explicit returning of h at the end of block. We could obviously write it on the same line:
h[face.material.display_name] += face.area; h
But I prefer the use of Object#tap (aka the K-combinator) instead:
Sketchup.active_model.entities.grep(Sketchup::Face).select(&:material).
reduce(Hash.new(0)) {|h, face|
h.tap {|h| h[face.material.display_name] += face.area }
}
And, that's it!
summa[face.material.display_name] returns nil by default when face.material.display_name isn't an existing key. When creating a hash, you can specify a different default value to return. Something like:
summa = Hash.new(0)
Just a note on your summary of face areas - you must also take into account of group/components might be scaled so you need make use of the transformations of the whole hierarchy of the groups/components containing the face you inspect. Remember that groups/components can also be skewed - so that has to be taken into account as well.

Troubles: Matrices, Vectors and Arrays

As far as I understood, matrices are very inflexible to work with. Therefor, I'm trying to get an array of vectors do deal with. My needs are: to be able to add vectors and make arithmetical operations on their components. Writing the code below,
require 'matrix'
x = Matrix.rows( IO.readlines("input.txt").each {|line| line.split} )
puts x.row_vectors
ruby falls into an exception. Why?
matrix.rb:1265:in `to_s': undefined method `join' for "1.2357 2.1742 -5.4834 -2.0735":String (NoMethodError)
OK then, I've calmed down and tried another approach. I wrote:
a = Array.[]( IO.readlines("input.txt").each {|line| Vector.[](line.split) } )
But the only way I can access my vectors inside an array is adressing the second index:
puts a[0][0]
This means, that when I would like to access desired scalar inside a vector, I'll will be forced to use the third index, like:
puts a[0][0][1]
So, the second question is - where the hell that second index comes from? How to get rid of it? Am I missing something when reading data into array?
I can't reproduce your first problem. Extracting what looks like input.txt, I can execute that first expression without an exception.
As to the second question, your expression seems kind of complex. How about:
b = IO.readlines("input.txt").map { |x| x.split(' ') }
This will get you a "2D" array of arrays, and you will need only two subscripts. (As to your question about where did the extra array come from, you got one from the Array constructor, one from IO.readlines, and one from the Vector constructor . . . I think.)
Or maybe:
result = []
IO.foreach('input.txt') { |ln| result << ln.split(' ') }

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