Push an array to another array using Ruby and return square brackets
I spent several hours looking for a way to drag an array to another array or hash. Sorry in advance if the formatting of this question is a little messy. This is the first time I have asked a question on StackOverflow, so I am trying to properly care for my questions.
I need to write some code to create the following test block:
class TestNAME < Test::Unit::TestCase
def test_directions()
assert_equal(Lexicon.scan("north"), [['direction', 'north']])
result = Lexicon.scan("north south east")
assert_equal(result, [['direction', 'north'],
['direction', 'south'],
['direction', 'east']])
end
end
The simplest thing I came up with is below. The first part goes through, but then the second part doesn't return the expected result when I run rake test
.
Instead of this:
[["direction", "north"], ["direction", "south"], ["direction", "East"]]
it returns:
["north", "south", "east"]
Although, if I print the y result as a string in the console, I end up with 3 separate arrays that are not contained in another array (as shown below). Why didn't it print the outer square brackets of the array, y ?
["direction", "north"] ["direction", "south"] ["direction", "east"]
Below is the code I wrote in an attempt to pass the test block above:
class Lexicon
def initialize(stuff)
@words = stuff.split
end
def self.scan(word)
if word.include?(' ')
broken_words = word.split
broken_words.each do |word|
x = ['direction']
x.push(word)
y = []
y.push(x)
end
else
return [['direction', word]]
end
end
end
Any feedback on this would be much appreciated. Thank you all in advance.
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What you see is the result each
that returns the repeating thing, or in this case broken_words
. You want collect
one that returns the converted values. Please note that your original is y
never used, it is simply thrown away after it is composed.
Here's the fixed version:
class Lexicon
def initialize(stuff)
@words = stuff.split
end
def self.scan(word)
broken_words = word.split(/\s+/)
broken_words.collect do |word|
[ 'direction', word ]
end
end
end
It's worth noting that a few things have changed here:
- Splitting into an arbitrary number of spaces, not just one.
- Simplification for one case instead of two.
- Elimination of redundant operator
return
.
One thing you might want to consider is using a data structure for example { direction: word }
. This makes referencing values much easier as you would entry[:direction]
by avoiding ambiguous ones entry[1]
.
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If you are not creating Lexicon objects, you can use a module which can make it clearer that you are not creating objects.
Also, there is no need to use an extra variable (i.e. broken words), and I prefer the {} block syntax in the do..end syntax for function blocks over iterative blocks.
module Lexicon
def self.scan str
str.split.map {|word| [ 'direction', word ] }
end
end
UPDATE : Based on Cary's comment (I assume he meant split when he scanned), I removed the extra argument to split.
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