From: Ryan Davis <ryand-ruby@...>
Date: 2009-07-13T15:57:26+09:00
Subject: Re: Conditionally exiting the current method?


On Jul 12, 2009, at 22:28 , Jason Burgett wrote:

reformatted for readability:

>    def self.method_1(user)
>      words = ["hello", "goodbye", "bonjour"]
>      user.strings.each do |string|
>        words.each do |word|
>          if string.text.downcase.include? word.downcase
>            puts "I found #{word}"
>          end
>        end
>      end
>    end
>
>    def self.method_2
>      put "This is method 2"
>    end
>
> In the above example, how do I stop execution on [method_1] after  
> [puts
> "I found #{word}"] so it can continue on to [method_2]?

First off, don't use #each when you don't need to. Look at the methods  
available in Enumerable. There is a lot of candy and magic there.  
Further, words is an array, and all the contents are already  
downcased, so you're doing a lot of extra work where you don't need  
to. Check it:

>    def self.method_1(user)
>      words = %w(hello goodbye bonjour)
>      word  = user.strings.find { |string|
>        words.find { |word| string.text.downcase.include? word }
>      }
>      puts "I found #{word}" if word
>    end

Since words is an array of words and you're just looking for a match  
of one of those words inside the user strings, use a regexp:

>    def self.method_1 user
>      words = Regexp.union %w(hello goodbye bonjour)
>      word  = user.strings.any? { |string| string.text =~ words }
>      puts "I found #{word}" if word
>    end

Depending on how user.strings is composed, it might be cleaner and  
faster to use grep:

>    def self.method_1 user
>      words = user.strings.grep Regexp.union(%w(hello goodbye bonjour))
>      puts "I found #{words.first}" unless words.empty?
>    end


You may have to do some massaging to get it to work with whatever type  
of object user.strings returns, but the idea is the same.