From: Justin Collins <justincollins@...>
Date: 2008-04-16T14:43:58+09:00
Subject: Re: Noob Questions [arrays]

RoRNoob wrote:
> Be warned - I'm new to Ruby and programming in general, so I'm sure
> this will be a trivial question for most of you.
>
> I'm currently working through the exercises in the book Learn to
> Program by Chris Pine. At the end of each chapter Chris has a little
> programming problem that the reader is asked to solve. I've been able
> to follow along just fine up until tonight.
>
> The problem in question is at the end of Chapter 8 (Arrays and
> Iterators): I have to write a program that asks the user to type in as
> many words as they want (one word per line, continuing until they just
> press Enter on an empty line) and then repeat the words back to them
> in alphabetical order.
>
> The program lives in a .rb file and is executed and ran from the
> terminal.
>
> Here is my code:
>
> alphalist = []
> alphalist.each do |item|
>   puts 'type words one at a time and I will alphabetize them for you.'
>   alphalist.push gets.chomp
> end
> puts alphalist.sort
>
> When I run the .rb file, nothing happens. Any help is appreciated!
>
>   

Take a look at your alphalist: it's just an empty array. When you do 
alphalist.each, you are 'visiting' each item in the array, but there are 
none. So it just skips down to 'puts alphalist.sort' and then exits.

-Justin