From: "Peña, Botp" <botp@...>
Date: 2007-08-18T11:56:14+09:00
Subject: Re: Help with Arrays...

From: William James [mailto:w_a_x_man@yahoo.com] 
# From: Robert Klemme <shortcut...@googlemail.com>
# > I'd rather do this because the test is much easier:
# > words = []
# > while ( line = gets )
# >   words << line.chomp
# > end
# 
# The original poster wants the loop to end when the user presses
# <Enter> without entering any text.  How about this?
# words = []
# while line = gets  and  line.chomp! != ""
#   words << line
# end

in (my) practice, i usually go the simple way (like robert's), then refine it as needed by just adding the lines.

words = []
while line=gets                 # break on eof
   break if line.strip!.empty?  # break on empty lines including spaces
   next  if line != /\w/        # special chars not allowed

   words << line                # passed
end

sometimes, (as a nuby,) putting all conditions in one line may be dangerous. it is dificult to test, difficult to comment, and one may miss edge cases... 
i know it's not clever, but i value safety first, and it's cleaner and clearer to me.. but ymmv.. i haven't reach the mile yet :)

kind regards -botp