From: Leslie Viljoen <leslieviljoen@...>
Date: 2006-05-22T20:35:42+09:00
Subject: Re: rubynuby - confused by method name "inject"

On 5/22/06, Leslie Viljoen <leslieviljoen@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/22/06, Regg Mr <spamwhite@cox.net> wrote:
> > Leslie Viljoen wrote:
> > > On 5/21/06, Jim Weirich <jim@weirichhouse.org> wrote:
> > >> Jeff Pritchard wrote:
> > >> > As for Inject, nobody has come up with a wording that makes any sense to
> > >> > me yet.  Does Inject have any aliases/synonyms?
> > >>
> > >> How I remember:  Inject takes a binary operation (e.g. +) and injects it
> > >> between each element of a list.
> > >>
> > >>    [1,2,3].inject { |a,b| a+b }  => 1+2+3
> > >
> > > Awesome! That really helps me!
> >
> >
> > Seems like "sum" would have been a better name.
>
> Or an alias inject_operator perhaps...
> This thread has discussed "sum" already and it's no good because you
> can use any operator. I also like "accumulate" as mentioned, but
> inject_operator is sooo clear to me.

..though the other uses of inject defy "inject_operator"...

data = [[1, 7, 3], [1, 2], [1, 5, 4, 1], [1, 8]]

longest_sample = nil
longest_length = data.inject(0) do |accum, sample|
	if accum > sample.length
		accum
	else
		longest_sample = sample
		sample.length
	end
end

puts "Longest sample: #{longest_sample.inspect}, length #{longest_length}"

..then again, using inject to find longest seems a bit silly...

longest_sample = data[0]
data.each do |sample|
	longest_sample = sample if sample.length > longest_sample.length
end
puts "Longest sample: #{longest_sample.inspect}, length #{longest_length}"