JohnAllen.us

While there are plenty of places on the web that talk about Ruby Arrays and Ruby Classes, I never have found one that just explained how to use a Class as an Array. So I thought I would post one for those who might want something simple to reference

First, the sample code:

class Test
  @dd = Array.new
  def initialize
    @dd = loadArray()
  end

  def [](a)
    @dd[a]
  end

  def []=(a, b)
    @dd[a] = b
  end

  def list
    @dd.each do |i|
      puts i
    end
  end

  def sort
    aa = Array.new
    aa = @dd.sort
    @dd = aa
  end

  private

  def loadArray
    rr = Array.new
    rr << "one"
    rr << "two"
    rr << "three"
    rr << "four"
    return rr
  end  

end

The class defines an internal array (@dd) and when you initialize an instance of Class Test, it will call the private method ‘loadArray’ to put some values into the array. Since this is just an example, we are just putting some dummy data in the array. Your class may not even have a ‘loadArray’ method if you don’t need to pre-load the array with values. Lots of time, I will be loading in the contents of a file when I initialize the Class.

irb(main):177:0> g = Test.new
=> #<Test:0x2cf400c @dd=["one", "two", "three", "four"]>

So now our Test object exists with values in the array. But how do we get at them? Easy! The ‘[](a)’ method allows for access to the array elements like so:

irb(main):178:0> g[3]
=> "four"
irb(main):179:0> g[4]
=> nil

If we need to assign a value, the ‘[]=(a,b)’ method does this:

irb(main):180:0> g[4] = "five"
=> "five"
irb(main):181:0> g
=> #<Test:0x2cf400c @dd=["one", "two", "three", "four", "five"]>

The real beauty of having your array as part of a Class is that you can create custom methods to act against the array:

irb(main):182:0> g.list
one
two
three
four
five
=> ["one", "two", "three", "four", "five"]
irb(main):183:0> g.sort
=> ["five", "four", "one", "three", "two"]

Of course you can’t call the ‘loadArray’ method outside of the class:

irb(main):184:0> g.loadArray
NoMethodError: private method `loadArray' called for #<Test:0x2cf400c @dd=["five", "four", "one", "three", "two"]>

        from (irb):184
        from :0

Here’s a working example from my toolkit:

class Ignore

  @ignores = Array.new

  def initialize(ignListFile)
    @ignores = _loadIgnoreList(ignListFile)
  end

  def check(value)
    @ignores.each do |j|
      if value[/#{j}/]
        return true
      end
    end
    return false
  end

  def list
    @ignores.each do |l|
       puts l
    end
  end

  def [](a)
    @ignores[a]
  end

  def []=(a,b)
    @ignores[a] = b
  end

  ###-----------###
  private
  ###-----------###
  def _loadIgnoreList(ifile)
    rr = Array.new
    begin
      f = File.read(ifile)
    rescue
      raise  "Error! Unable to open Ignore list file: #{ifile}."
    end
    rr = YAML.load(f)
    return rr
  end

end

The Ignore Class stores a list of strings to ignore when scanning through files/lists/values/etc. Its used like so:

ign = Ignore.new("list_to_ignore.yml")
...
list.each do |test|
  if not ign.check(test)
     # work with the item
  else
     # ignored
  end
end