From: Sebastian Hungerecker <sepp2k@...>
Date: 2007-11-16T17:11:58+09:00
Subject: Re: Recursion help.

JeremyWoertink@gmail.com wrote:
> I tried your version of the program. It seems to go into an endless
> loop, or just takes a REALLY long time. I stopped it after 30
> seconds.

As I said, I didn't test the code, but I really can't see where it would go 
into an endless loop. I only have each-loops in there.
If you give me a sample input file and a specification how the resulting 
output file should look like I could go and debug.


> So, I see why you would use "w" and not "w+", but why do you use the
> ARGV[0] ||?

As I said, I prefer command line arguments to reading from STDIN.
ARGV[0]||ask_for takes the first command line argument or, if there
was no first command line argument, asks the user for input.


> I know that ARGV is an array, but I don't know what it is used for

Command line arguments.


> or 
> why you would use it instead of making your own array.

Your own array would only contain elements you put in it. ARGV contains the 
command line arguments.


> Also, why would 
> you assign the filename the user input *or* ARGV[0]?

So the script doesn't ask for user input if the filename was already specified 
as a command line argument.


> The thing with the each_with_index is that the second record will have
> a sequence of 2, and it should have a sequence of 1.

Your sequence variable started at 1, too, and was incremented by 1 at every 
iteration. The each_with_index with sequence+1 should behave exactly like 
that.


HTH,
Sebastian
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