From: "Peña, Botp" <botp@...>
Date: 2007-10-30T12:19:36+09:00
Subject: Re: find the closest items in an array to a given value.

On Behalf Of 7stud --:
# a = [ 1.25, 1, 3, 1.9, 1.95, 2.1, 2.2, 1.5]
# target = 1.85
# closest_lower = nil
# closest_higher = nil
# a.each do |elmt|
#   if elmt < target
#     if !closest_lower or elmt > closest_lower
#       closest_lower = elmt
#     end
#   elsif elmt > target
#     if !closest_higher or elmt < closest_higher
#       closest_higher = elmt
#     end
#   else #if elmt == target
#     #do something
#   end
# end
# 
# Surprisingly, this is slightly faster--even for very large arrays:
# target = 1.85
# less_than = []
# greater_than = []
# a.each do |elmt|
#   if elmt < target
#     less_than << elmt
# 
#   elsif elmt > target
#     greater_than << elmt
#   end
# end
# puts less_than.max
# puts greater_than.min

cool and straightforward. works in unordered list.

have you tried #partition?

~> a
=> [1.25, 1, 3, 1.9, 1.95, 2.1, 2.2, 1.5]
~> [(parts=a.partition{|i| i<=1.85}).first.max,parts.last.min]
=> [1.5, 1.9]

in 1.9, there is already group_by, so
~> [(parts=a.group_by{|e| e<=1.85}.values).last.max,parts.first.min]
=> [1.5, 1.9]


..but we may be working too hard if lists is ordered though. and for ordered lists, a binary search like what ara posted should be the fastest.

kind regards -botp