From: "Michael W. Ryder" <_mwryder@...>
Date: 2007-05-04T10:25:04+09:00
Subject: Re: Is there a better way to do this?

Harry Kakueki wrote:
> On 5/4/07, Michael W. Ryder <_mwryder@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>> As part of my learning Ruby I am trying to learn how to format strings.
>>   The following is an example for formatting a U.S. phone number:
>>
>> a = "1234567890"
>> b = "(000) 000-0000"
>> ai = 0
>>
>> for i in 0..(b.length) -1
>>    if b[i,1] == "0"
>>      b[i,1] = a[ai,1]
>>      ai += 1
>>    end
>> end
>> puts b
>>
>> Is there a better (more Rubyish) way to do this?
>> Obviously I will want to add more code in the future to handle
>> exceptions like phone numbers that are not 10 characters long or are
>> longer, but this will get me started.
>>
>>
> I'm sure there are better ways but here is something to look at.
> 
> a = "1234567890"
> area = a.slice(0..2)
> exc = a.slice(3..5)
> num = a.slice(6..9)
> tel = "(#{area}) #{exc}-#{num}"
> 
> p tel
> 
> Harry
> 
> 
I am trying to come up with a "generic" formatting routine so that I 
could feed it something like sform("123456789", "000-00-0000") or 
sform("1234567890", "(000) 000-0000") or sform("123456", "00/00/00") and 
it would work.  I could easily do something like you suggest, and for 
some cases it might be better, but I want something I can for any number 
of formats.  Thanks for the input.