From: gabriele renzi <surrender_it@...1.vip.ukl.yahoo.com>
Date: 2004-07-24T19:41:58+09:00
Subject: Re: The number of lines of a file?

il Sat, 24 Jul 2004 18:29:59 +0800, polarpolar <polarpolar@infor.org>
ha scritto::

>Hi, Ruby Fans :
>
>I would like to write a simple program, which can read random line:
>( file.txt has 7 lines )
>
>1:  srand 5269
>2:  f = File.new( "file.txt", "r" )
>3:  print f.readlines[ rand(6) ]

mh.. aFile.is_a? Enumerable, use Enumerable.to_a :)

>Thus I can get one line in file.txt by random. ( of course easily. )
>Still, the "file.txt" will not only be a 7-lines file, right ? ;)
>How can I get the number of lines of a file ?

you have to read it. The basic concept of "line" is determined by how
you define it in your program. 

>So that I can get one line in file.txt by random
>more flexibly just like:
>
>1:  srand 5269
>2:  f = File.new( "file.txt", "r" )
>3:  print f.readlines[ rand( lines_of_file-1 ) ]
>However, I don't want to "loop" the loop :(
>Is there any object or method I can use ?

dunno what you mean by "loop the loop", sorry.

Anyway this may work:
 words=File.read('w.txt').split("\n")
 word= words[rand(words.size)-1]