From: William James <w_a_x_man@...>
Date: 2007-09-08T00:25:07+09:00
Subject: Re: help me condence my code?

On Sep 6, 7:29 pm, "Simon Schuster" <significa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I know this could be more idiomatic to ruby.
>
> it's basically to turnhttp://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18362into 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)]

puts IO.readlines("phrases_no_extra.txt").
  reject{|x| x =~ /\[|^[A-Z ]*$/}.
  instance_eval{ self[ rand(self.size) ] }