From: Jeffrey Schwab <jeff@...>
Date: 2006-03-01T01:53:36+09:00
Subject: Re: Formatting to "Thousands"

James Edward Gray II wrote:

> def commify( number )
>   number.to_s.reverse.gsub!(/(\d\d\d)(?=\d)(?!\d*\.)/, '\1,').reverse
> end

That's nice, except that gsub! returns nil if no substitutions are 
performed, e.g. if the number has fewer than 4 digits.  This can result 
in an exception like:

   main.rb:3:in `commify':
     undefined method `reverse' for nil:NilClass(NoMethodError)

Of course, you could just break the chain across multiple lines:

   def commify(number)
     s = number.to_s
     s.reverse!
     s.gsub!(/(\d\d\d)(?=\d)(?!\d*\.)/, '\1,')
     s.reverse!
   end