From: "Eric I." <rubytraining@...>
Date: 2008-06-07T22:33:50+09:00
Subject: Re: using portions of other methods in a new method

On Jun 7, 9:10 am, Jason Lillywhite <jason.lillywh...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> How do you take a piece of a method and use it in another? Here is my
> simple example:
>
> class MyArray
>   def counter
>     result = []
>     i = 0
>     a = 1
>     b = 0
>     while i <= 5 do
>       a = a + 1
>       b = b +1.5
>       result << b.to_s + "\t" + a.to_s
>       i += 1
>     end
>     puts result
>   end
>   def counter2
>     counter
>   end
> end
>
> test = MyArray.new
> puts test.counter2
>
> I want counter2 method to take the array "b" and do something with it,
> like this:
> b.inject {|sum, element| sum+element}
> I just can't figure out how to transfer b from one method to another. Is
> there a clean way to do this?

Hi Jason,

If I understand you correctly, you want your counter method to return
b to its caller.  The method will return the value of the last
expression evaluated, or alternatively you can use a return statement
anywhere within the method.

====

class MyArray
  def counter
    result = []
    i = 0
    a = 1
    b = 0
    while i <= 5 do
      a = a + 1
      b = b +1.5
      result << b.to_s + "\t" + a.to_s
      i += 1
    end
    puts result
    b  # will return b to caller
  end
  def counter2
    this_b = counter  # capture the return value
    this_b.inject {|sum, element| sum+element}  # total is returned to
caller
  end
end
test = MyArray.new
puts test.counter2

====

Hope that helps,

Eric

====

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