From: Andrew Timberlake <andrew@...>
Date: 2009-04-05T15:32:48+09:00
Subject: Re: parsing a file's contents

On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 5:04 AM, Ant 23 <ahack70596@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hello all, I'm relatively new to ruby and this forum so I'm not sure I'm
> posting this in the right area but here goes. My problem is I have a
> file I want to read in, the file contains numbers in a CSV set-up like
> so: 2, 3, 15, 25, 29 the numbers are all written out like that 5 per
> row. What I want to do is split the numbers into columns that the 2 and
> the number under it are all in an array. The main problem I'm having is
> that when I try to put the numbers into the array I get a NoMethodError
> for the String type which I don't understand since I created the every
> method for the Array class not String. I attached the code any
> assistance is appreciated.
>
> Attachments:
> http://www.ruby-forum.com/attachment/3550/numbers.rb
>
> --
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
>
>

Here's some code that does what you need: http://gist.github.com/90389

A quick look through your code with some comments:
# <- This is completely unecessary
class Array
  def every(n)
    select{|x| index(x) % n == 0}
  end
end

# <- The way you are writing this makes this class completely
unecessary. For this simple use-case, it's okay to write it as a
simple script.
class Numbers

  #Declare the arrays that will hold the numbers when they are seperated
  colA = []
  colB = []
  colC = []
  colD = []
  colE = []

  #Declare the array that will hold all the numbers in the file <-
Ruby will fill this with a string because that's what each line of the
file will be read as
  allNumbers = []
  #now we just have to get the numbers from the file into the array <-
No need for a counter
  counter = 1
  File.open("C:\\Documents and Settings\\Desktop\\test.txt", "r") do |infile|
    while(allNumbers = infile.gets) <- This is where ruby will change
allNumbers to a String
	#this is not working as ruby is taking the files contents as strings
not ints <- You got it
	  #colA = allNumbers.every 5 #in theory should take every fifth
number from allNumbers and put it in colA
      puts "#{allNumbers.to_s}" #ok it works but now i need to put the
numbers into each different array <- It works because you're printing
out the line from the file
	  colA = allNumbers.every 5 #in theory should take every fifth number
from allNumbers and put it in colA <- Won't work because you're
expecting an array
	  puts "#{colA.to_s}" #print out the numbers in colA
      counter = counter + 1 #why aint this counter++  <- Because
that's not ruby, you can do counter += 1
    end	
  end
end

It looks like you're coming from a Java background. Ruby tends to do
things quite differently even though it can look similar in some
respects.
Here's an online book that could be useful to get a quick overview of
Ruby - http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/ruby-doc-bundle/ProgrammingRuby/index.html

Hope that helps

Andrew Timberlake
http://ramblingsonrails.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewtimberlake

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education" - Mark Twain