From: Simon Schuster <significants@...>
Date: 2007-09-07T09:29:59+09:00
Subject: help me condence my code?

I know this could be more idiomatic to ruby.

it's basically to turn http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18362 into an
array. the "_no_extras" refers to me having snipped the intro and
outro of the text outside of ruby. I still have to do something with
the "SECTION" fields and the "A", "B", etc. fields. (not to mention
some kind of linguistic parsing which would make f[rand(f.size)] + " "
f[rand(f.size)] + " " .... link together in a coherent matter, but
that's a little beyond me. any direction in this area would be kindly
appreciated though! I'm thinking of separating it into different text
files maybe. certain sections are almost whole sentences, they're
grouped in all kinds of ways that will maybe help with this. no
long-term goal, really, just learning ruby and having fun. :)

anyhow, the sloppy newbie code is as follows:

f = File.read("phrases_no_extra.txt")
f = f.to_a
f = f.each { |x| x.chop! }
f.each_with_index { |x,y|    # deletes the empty array items
	if x.size == 0
		f.delete_at(y)
	end
	}
f.each_with_index { |x,y|     # deleting all but the last (which is
spread of two lines)
	if x.include? "]"         # of his comments
		f.delete_at(y)
	end
	}
f.each_with_index { |x,y|         # yes, this is me unable to recall
how to do "or" hahaha.
	if x.include? "["
		f.delete_at(y)
	end
	}
f.delete_at(-1)          # random whitespace item at the end from the last quote
	
puts f[rand(f.size)]