From: Pete Yandell <pete.yandell@...>
Date: 2006-10-24T15:51:16+09:00
Subject: Re: How to remove empty element in an array


On 24/10/2006, at 1:02 PM, Seth E. wrote:

> Li Chen wrote:
>
>> I have an array of [1,2,''] I want change it to [1,2]. I check the
>> document about Array but I can't find a way to remove the empty  
>> element.
>> Any comments?
>
> How about this?
>
> irb(main):201:0> arr = [1,2,'']
> => [1, 2, ""]
> irb(main):202:0> arr -= ['']
> => [1, 2]

If you just want to delete empty strings (as opposed to strings  
containing only whitespace), this would seem the obvious way:

irb(main):003:0> a = [1, 2, '', 3, '']
=> [1, 2, "", 3, ""]
irb(main):004:0> a.delete ''
=> ""
irb(main):005:0> a
=> [1, 2, 3]

If you want to delete any whitespace-only strings as well:

irb(main):002:0> a = [1, 2, '', 3, '  ']
=> [1, 2, "", 3, "  "]
irb(main):007:0> a.delete_if {|s| s =~ /^\s*$/ }
=> [1, 2, 3]

Pete Yandell
http://notahat.com/