From: Michael Trier <mtrier@...>
Date: 2006-05-15T09:39:44+09:00
Subject: Mapping a String to Properties - A Better Way?

I have a piece of code that works fine, but I'm wondering if there is
a better way to go about it. The method is receiving a hash (params)
and in that hash are a group of items named item_1, item_2, item_3,
and so on.  Each of these items contains a whitespace separated list
of values.  For instance:

item_1 => "120 355 240 145"
item_2 => "130 400 100 100"

These values map to x, y, width, and height properties on an object.

Here's my code, but is there a better, more Ruby way to do this:

    params.each do |key, value|
      if key =~ /^item_/
        a = value.split
        Item.update(key.split("_")[1],
                                    :x => a[0],
                                    :y => a[1],
                                    :width => a[2],
                                    :height => a[3])
      end
    end

Thanks in advance for any pointers.

Michael