From: Robert Dober <robert.dober@...>
Date: 2007-04-30T00:21:18+09:00
Subject: Re: Array.which_long? ( I coded an extension for Array )

On 4/29/07, David A. Black <dblack@wobblini.net> wrote:
> Hi --
>
> On 4/29/07, Billy Hsu <ruby.maillist@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Thanks for your reply, I learned more on this thread :P
> > But I have a question:
> > If I have an array contain:
> >   ary = [1, 12, 234, "456"]
> > there has two elements which size is 3, but the longest method just returned
> > one of them.
> > I can't solve it :(
Alternatively I can use my erroneous code from above to give you all
longest elements
def longest
   longest_size = map{ |e| [e.to_s.size, e.to_s]}.max.first
   reject{ |x| x.size < longest}
end

this is slow though, maybe the following is preferable - but not so readable -
  def longest
           inject([]){ |s, e|
                  if s.empty? || s.first.size < e.to_s.size then [e]
                  elsif s.first.size == e.to_s.size then s << e
                  else s
                  end
                }
end

> <tie breaking solutions snipped>
Robert
You see things; and you say Why?
But I dream things that never were; and I say Why not?
-- George Bernard Shaw