From: Brian Candler <b.candler@...>
Date: 2008-11-05T23:18:03+09:00
Subject: Re: String comparisions and counting

Stuart Clarke wrote:
> I have an array full of strings which represent a date ID. The array
> contains indivduals strings like the following:
> 
> TueAug052008
> 
> I want to iterate through this array (@eventbydate[]) and check each of
> the values of the array. I then want a statement which says if any of
> the date ID's in the array occurs more than 5 times print out some data.

  counts = Hash.new(0)
  @eventbydate.each { |e| counts[e] += 1 }
  if counts.find { |c| c >= 5 }
    puts "Print out some data"
  end

There are other variations:

  ...
  if counts.values.max >= 5
  ...

More efficient is to stop counting as soon as you reach 5, if you don't 
need the final values:

  counts = Hash.new(0)
  if @eventbydate.find { |e| (counts[e] += 1) >= 5 }
    puts "Print out some data"
  end
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