From: Fer# <fernando.mdelacueva@...>
Date: 2007-01-28T09:15:07+09:00
Subject: Re: Question about digits

Why call them digits, if you can call them characters?

If you have got arbitrary_number, you got arbitrary_number.to_s so:

----
irb(main):001:0> arbitrary_number=123
=> 123
irb(main):002:0> arbitrary_number.to_s
=> "123"
irb(main):002:0> arbitrary_number.to_s.length
=> 3
irb(main):003:0> (0...arbitrary_number.to_s.length).map{|digit| 
arbitrary_number.to_s.split('')[digit]}
=> ["1","2","3"]
----

This above will do for base 10, and printf stuff may help with hex, 
oct at least.

Remember it is '...' and not '..'  so you don't access 
arbitrary_number[arbitrary_number.length]

Hope this may help you