From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2008-06-25T18:19:30+09:00
Subject: Re: Creating a variable based on array

2008/6/25 Tj Superfly <nonstickglue@verizon.net>:
> The line 'petpet_array = []' obviously doesn't work because it just
> thinks "petpet_array", but I need it to use the item coming from the
> array, so how might I be able to accomplish that?

I am not sure what you mean here.  Of course you can initialize the
local variable in every loop - and you get a new Array.

> Basically this problem repeats itself throughout the entire program
> because I'm unsure how to get it to pull from the array!

"pull from the array"?  I have no idea what that is supposed to mean
in this context.

> If anyone can help me out with this, instruct me how to get it to do
> what I'm wanting, please let me know. If you have questions, please
> post. :)

This is how I'd probably do it: basically you just need Array#map,
i.e. you create a new Array from the values in color.

Here's how I'd do it:

#!/bin/env ruby

require 'yaml'

$defout.sync=true

petpets = ["Slorg", "Sludgy", "Spyder", "Wadjet", "Buzzer", "Angelpuss",
"Mallard", "Scarabug", "Cobrall", "Magaral", "Tenna", "Floud",
"Slymook", "Stego", "Selket", "Warf", "Altachuck", "Khnum", "Blobagus",
"Tomamu", "Psimouse", "Puppyblew", "Hopso", "Harris"]

colors = ["black", "blue", "brown", "chocolate", "christmas", "clay",
"cloud", "custard", "darigan", "disco", "dung", "faerie", "fire",
"ghost", "glow", "gold", "green", "grey", "halloween", "ice",
"invisible", "island", "jelly", "maraquan", "mutant", "orange", "pink",
"pirate", "plushie", "purple", "rainbow", "red", "robot", "sketch",
"snow", "spotted", "starry", "tyrannian", "white", "yellow"]

base = "/Users/superfly/Desktop/news_finder/arrays"

petpets.each do |petpet|
  puts "Now creating file for #{petpet}."

  array = colors.map do |color|
    "http://www.mysite.com/code/#{petpet}_#{color}.gif"
  end

  puts array

  File.open("#{base}/#{petpet}_array.yaml","w") do |out|
    YAML.dump(array, out)
  end

  puts "The file for #{petpet} has been created successfully.", "", ""
end

Note that String interpolation (using #{} inside double quoted
Strings) is usually faster and - as you can see - takes up less space
in the program because it does #to_s implicitly.

Another note: you can make your life a bit easier by using %w{} to
generate all those arrays, i.e.

petpets = %w{Slorg Sludgy Spyder Wadjet} # etc

This works only if your words do not contain whitespace which seems to
be the case here.

Kind regards

robert

-- 
use.inject do |as, often| as.you_can - without end