From: Tom Werner <tom@...>
Date: 2006-07-27T07:35:58+09:00
Subject: Re: help me make this prettier and more ruby-ish

How about something like this:

infobar_sites = [     ["usmarket", "The Market"],
                    "internet",
                    ["etf", "ETFs"],
                    "china",
                    "energy",
                    ["ce", "Electronics"],
                    "media",
                    "gold",
                    "telecom",
                    "biotech",
                    "retail",
                    "japan",
                    "india" ]
           
def infobar_link(*args)
    "<li>#{args.join(', ')}</li>"
end

puts infobar_sites.map { |m| infobar_link(*m.to_a) }

Which outputs

<li>usmarket, The Market</li>
<li>internet</li>
<li>etf, ETFs</li>
<li>china</li>
<li>energy</li>
<li>ce, Electronics</li>
<li>media</li>
<li>gold</li>
<li>telecom</li>
<li>biotech</li>
<li>retail</li>
<li>japan</li>
<li>india</li>

Tom

Rob Sanheim wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I know this can be done much cleaner and with prettier code...but I
> was having trouble getting my head around doing it with collect.
>
> "infobar_link" creates hyperlinks - it takes a 1st parameter of a
> string denoting a lookup value, and an optional second string
> parameter for the link text.
>
> So "infobar_sites" is a list of sites I want to create links to, and
> as you can see they can either be just a lookup value (single string),
> or an array with the lookup and a title to override the default.  Then
> I just enumerate thru and create a list of the links.
>
>
> infobar_sites = [     ["usmarket", "The Market"],
>                     "internet",
>                     ["etf", "ETFs"],
>                     "china",
>                     "energy",
>                     ["ce", "Electronics"],
>                     "media",
>                     "gold",
>                     "telecom",
>                     "biotech",
>                     "retail",
>                     "japan",
>                     "india" ]
> output = ""
> infobar_sites.each do |args|
>     link = nil
>     if args.is_a? String
>         link = infobar_link(args)
>     else
>         link = infobar_link(args[0], args[1])
>     end
>     output += "<li>#{ link }</li>"
> end
> output
>
> any help greatly appreciated...
>
> thanks
> - Rob
>


-- 
Tom Werner
Helmets to Hardhats
Software Developer
tom@helmetstohardhats.org
www.helmetstohardhats.org