I have an array that I want to iterate over and delete some of the elements. This doesn't work:
a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
a.each do |x|
next if x < 3
a.delete x
# do something with x
end
a #=> [1, 2, 4]
I want a to be [1, 2]. How can I get around this?
a.delete_if { |x| x >= 3 }
See method documentation here
Update:
You can handle x in the block:
a.delete_if do |element|
if element >= 3
do_something_with(element)
true # Make sure the if statement returns true, so it gets marked for deletion
end
end
You don't have to delete from the array, you can filter it so:
a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
b = a.select {|x| x < 3}
puts b.inspect # => [1,2]
b.each {|i| puts i} # do something to each here
I asked this question not long ago.
Deleting While Iterating in Ruby?
It's not working because Ruby exits the .each loop when attempting to delete something. If you simply want to delete things from the array, delete_if will work, but if you want more control, the solution I have in that thread works, though it's kind of ugly.
Another way to do it is using reject!, which is arguably clearer since it has a ! which means "this will change the array". The only difference is that reject! will return nil if no changes were made.
a.delete_if {|x| x >= 3 }
or
a.reject! {|x| x >= 3 }
will both work fine.
Related
I couldn't find a method in docs to do the following:
a = [1, 2, 3]
b = a.remove! {|x| x > 1}
puts a # [1]
puts b # [2, 3]
There is a select! method that does similar thing but it doesn't accept a predicate.
To my disappointment, delete_if, keep_if, reject! and select! mutate the array but also return the same array.
Currently, I achieve a desired in 2 steps like this but maybe there are better/smarter options?
a = [1, 2, 3]
b = a.reject {|x| x > 1}
a = a - b
puts a # [1]
puts b # [2, 3]
I don't know a way to accomplish that in 1 step, however if as in your 2nd example you'd accept to not mutate a from the ruby method, you could use Enumerable#partition
a = [1, 2, 3]
# note that b is first because first array is for elements returning true
b, a = a.partition { |x| x > 1 }
puts a # [1]
puts b # [2, 3]
The object of my coding exercise is to get rid of duplicates in an array without using the uniq method. Here is my code:
numbers = [1, 4, 2, 4, 3, 1, 5]
def my_uniq(array)
sorted = array.sort
count = 1
while count <= sorted.length
while true
sorted.delete_if {|i| i = i + count}
count += 1
end
end
return sorted
end
When I run this, I get an infinite loop. What is wrong?
Can I use delete the way that I am doing with count?
How will it execute? Will count continue until the end of the array before the method iterates to the next index?
I did this with each or map, and got the same results. What is the best way to do this using each, delete_if, map, or a while loop (with a second loop that compares against the first one)?
Here is a clearly written example.
numbers = [1, 4, 2, 4, 3, 1, 5]
def remove_duplicates(array)
response = Array.new
array.each do |number|
response << number unless response.include?(number)
end
return response
end
remove_duplicates(numbers)
As others pointed out, your inner loop is infinite. Here's a concise solution with no loops:
numbers.group_by{|n| n}.keys
You can sort it if you want, but this solution doesn't require it.
the problem is that the inner loop is an infinite loop:
while true
sorted.delete_if {|i| i = i + count}
count += 1
end #while
you can probably do what you are doing but it's not eliminating duplicates.
one way to do this would be:
numbers = [1, 4, 2, 4, 3, 1, 5]
target = []
numbers.each {|x| target << x unless target.include?(x) }
puts target.inspect
to add it to the array class:
class ::Array
def my_uniq
target = []
self.each {|x| target << x unless target.include?(x) }
target
end
end
now you can do:
numbers = [1, 4, 2, 4, 3, 1, 5]
numbers.my_uniq
You count use Set that acts like an array with does not allow duplicates:
require 'set'
numbers = [1, 4, 2, 4, 3, 1, 5]
Set.new(numbers).to_a
#=> [1, 4, 2, 3, 5]
Try using Array#& passing the array itself as parameter:
x = [1,2,3,3,3]
x & x #=> [1,2,3]
This is one of the answer. However, I do not know how much of performance issue it takes to return unique
def my_uniq(ints)
i = 0
uniq = []
while i < ints.length
ints.each do |integers|
if integers == i
uniq.push(integers)
end
i += 1
end
end
return uniq
end
I have a map which either changes a value or sets it to nil. I then want to remove the nil entries from the list. The list doesn't need to be kept.
This is what I currently have:
# A simple example function, which returns a value or nil
def transform(n)
rand > 0.5 ? n * 10 : nil }
end
items.map! { |x| transform(x) } # [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] => [10, nil, 30, 40, nil]
items.reject! { |x| x.nil? } # [10, nil, 30, 40, nil] => [10, 30, 40]
I'm aware I could just do a loop and conditionally collect in another array like this:
new_items = []
items.each do |x|
x = transform(x)
new_items.append(x) unless x.nil?
end
items = new_items
But it doesn't seem that idiomatic. Is there a nice way to map a function over a list, removing/excluding the nils as you go?
You could use compact:
[1, nil, 3, nil, nil].compact
=> [1, 3]
I'd like to remind people that if you're getting an array containing nils as the output of a map block, and that block tries to conditionally return values, then you've got code smell and need to rethink your logic.
For instance, if you're doing something that does this:
[1,2,3].map{ |i|
if i % 2 == 0
i
end
}
# => [nil, 2, nil]
Then don't. Instead, prior to the map, reject the stuff you don't want or select what you do want:
[1,2,3].select{ |i| i % 2 == 0 }.map{ |i|
i
}
# => [2]
I consider using compact to clean up a mess as a last-ditch effort to get rid of things we didn't handle correctly, usually because we didn't know what was coming at us. We should always know what sort of data is being thrown around in our program; Unexpected/unknown data is bad. Anytime I see nils in an array I'm working on, I dig into why they exist, and see if I can improve the code generating the array, rather than allow Ruby to waste time and memory generating nils then sifting through the array to remove them later.
'Just my $%0.2f.' % [2.to_f/100]
Try using reduce or inject.
[1, 2, 3].reduce([]) { |memo, i|
if i % 2 == 0
memo << i
end
memo
}
I agree with the accepted answer that we shouldn't map and compact, but not for the same reasons.
I feel deep inside that map then compact is equivalent to select then map. Consider: map is a one-to-one function. If you are mapping from some set of values, and you map, then you want one value in the output set for each value in the input set. If you are having to select before-hand, then you probably don't want a map on the set. If you are having to select afterwards (or compact) then you probably don't want a map on the set. In either case you are iterating twice over the entire set, when a reduce only needs to go once.
Also, in English, you are trying to "reduce a set of integers into a set of even integers".
Ruby 2.7+
There is now!
Ruby 2.7 is introducing filter_map for this exact purpose. It's idiomatic and performant, and I'd expect it to become the norm very soon.
For example:
numbers = [1, 2, 5, 8, 10, 13]
enum.filter_map { |i| i * 2 if i.even? }
# => [4, 16, 20]
In your case, as the block evaluates to falsey, simply:
items.filter_map { |x| process_x url }
"Ruby 2.7 adds Enumerable#filter_map" is a good read on the subject, with some performance benchmarks against some of the earlier approaches to this problem:
N = 100_000
enum = 1.upto(1_000)
Benchmark.bmbm do |x|
x.report("select + map") { N.times { enum.select { |i| i.even? }.map{ |i| i + 1 } } }
x.report("map + compact") { N.times { enum.map { |i| i + 1 if i.even? }.compact } }
x.report("filter_map") { N.times { enum.filter_map { |i| i + 1 if i.even? } } }
end
# Rehearsal -------------------------------------------------
# select + map 8.569651 0.051319 8.620970 ( 8.632449)
# map + compact 7.392666 0.133964 7.526630 ( 7.538013)
# filter_map 6.923772 0.022314 6.946086 ( 6.956135)
# --------------------------------------- total: 23.093686sec
#
# user system total real
# select + map 8.550637 0.033190 8.583827 ( 8.597627)
# map + compact 7.263667 0.131180 7.394847 ( 7.405570)
# filter_map 6.761388 0.018223 6.779611 ( 6.790559)
Definitely compact is the best approach for solving this task. However, we can achieve the same result just with a simple subtraction:
[1, nil, 3, nil, nil] - [nil]
=> [1, 3]
In your example:
items.map! { |x| process_x url } # [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] => [1, nil, 3, nil, nil]
it does not look like the values have changed other than being replaced with nil. If that is the case, then:
items.select{|x| process_x url}
will suffice.
If you wanted a looser criterion for rejection, for example, to reject empty strings as well as nil, you could use:
[1, nil, 3, 0, ''].reject(&:blank?)
=> [1, 3, 0]
If you wanted to go further and reject zero values (or apply more complex logic to the process), you could pass a block to reject:
[1, nil, 3, 0, ''].reject do |value| value.blank? || value==0 end
=> [1, 3]
[1, nil, 3, 0, '', 1000].reject do |value| value.blank? || value==0 || value>10 end
=> [1, 3]
You can use #compact method on the resulting array.
[10, nil, 30, 40, nil].compact => [10, 30, 40]
each_with_object is probably the cleanest way to go here:
new_items = items.each_with_object([]) do |x, memo|
ret = process_x(x)
memo << ret unless ret.nil?
end
In my opinion, each_with_object is better than inject/reduce in conditional cases because you don't have to worry about the return value of the block.
One more way to accomplish it will be as shown below. Here, we use Enumerable#each_with_object to collect values, and make use of Object#tap to get rid of temporary variable that is otherwise needed for nil check on result of process_x method.
items.each_with_object([]) {|x, obj| (process x).tap {|r| obj << r unless r.nil?}}
Complete example for illustration:
items = [1,2,3,4,5]
def process x
rand(10) > 5 ? nil : x
end
items.each_with_object([]) {|x, obj| (process x).tap {|r| obj << r unless r.nil?}}
Alternate approach:
By looking at the method you are calling process_x url, it is not clear what is the purpose of input x in that method. If I assume that you are going to process the value of x by passing it some url and determine which of the xs really get processed into valid non-nil results - then, may be Enumerabble.group_by is a better option than Enumerable#map.
h = items.group_by {|x| (process x).nil? ? "Bad" : "Good"}
#=> {"Bad"=>[1, 2], "Good"=>[3, 4, 5]}
h["Good"]
#=> [3,4,5]
a = [1, 2, 3]
a.each do |x| x+=10 end
After this operation array a is still [1, 2, 3]. How to convert it into [11, 12, 13]?
Use the collect! method:
a = [1, 2, 3]
a.collect!{ |x| x + 10 }
There are two general classes of solutions:
Imperative object-mutating code
a.map! { |x| x + 10 }
An almost functional solution
a = a.map { |x| x + 10 }
Both techniques have their place.
I like the aliased name "map" myself. It has less characters.
The difference with these methods as compared to what you've done is two fold. One is that you have to use a method that modifies the initial array (typically these are the bang methods, or the methods which have a name ending in a ! (map!, collect!, ...) The second thing is that a.each is the method typically used for just going through the array to use the individual elements. Map or Collect methods return an array containing a return from each iteration of the block.
Hence, you could have done the following:
a = [1,2,3]
b = []
a.each do |x|
b << x+10
end
or you could use the map or collect method as demonstrated by dmarko or as here:
a = [1,2,3]
a = a.map {|x| x+10}
(1..4).collect do |x|
next if x == 3
x + 1
end # => [2, 3, nil, 5]
# desired => [2, 3, 5]
If the condition for next is met, collect puts nil in the array, whereas what I'm trying to do is put no element in the returned array if the condition is met. Is this possible without calling delete_if { |x| x == nil } on the returned array?
My code excerpt is heavily abstracted, so looking for a general solution to the problem.
There is method Enumerable#reject which serves just the purpose:
(1..4).reject{|x| x == 3}.collect{|x| x + 1}
The practice of directly using an output of one method as an input of another is called method chaining and is very common in Ruby.
BTW, map (or collect) is used for direct mapping of input enumerable to the output one. If you need to output different number of elements, chances are that you need another method of Enumerable.
Edit: If you are bothered by the fact that some of the elements are iterated twice, you can use less elegant solution based on inject (or its similar method named each_with_object):
(1..4).each_with_object([]){|x,a| a << x + 1 unless x == 3}
I would simply call .compact on the resultant array, which removes any instances of nil in an array. If you'd like it to modify the existing array (no reason not to), use .compact!:
(1..4).collect do |x|
next if x == 3
x
end.compact!
In Ruby 2.7+, it’s possible to use filter_map for this exact purpose. From the docs:
Returns an array containing truthy elements returned by the block.
(0..9).filter_map {|i| i * 2 if i.even? } #=> [0, 4, 8, 12, 16]
{foo: 0, bar: 1, baz: 2}.filter_map {|key, value| key if value.even? } #=> [:foo, :baz]
For the example in the question: (1..4).filter_map { |x| x + 1 unless x == 3 }.
See this post for comparison with alternative methods, including benchmarks.
just a suggestion, why don't you do it this way:
result = []
(1..4).each do |x|
next if x == 3
result << x
end
result # => [1, 2, 4]
in that way you saved another iteration to remove nil elements from the array. hope it helps =)
i would suggest to use:
(1..4).to_a.delete_if {|x| x == 3}
instead of the collect + next statement.
You could pull the decision-making into a helper method, and use it via Enumerable#reduce:
def potentially_keep(list, i)
if i === 3
list
else
list.push i
end
end
# => :potentially_keep
(1..4).reduce([]) { |memo, i| potentially_keep(memo, i) }
# => [1, 2, 4]