From: John W Higgins <wishdev@...>
Date: 2010-07-14T07:24:25+09:00
Subject: Re: What does this do?

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Afternoon,


> For example, this from the documentation:
> a = "hello there"
> a[-3,2] #=> "er"
>
> -3 ---> Start counting from 0 to 3 from the end (Right -> Left)
> In this case I reached the letter "h" of there
>
> 2 ---> What should I do here?
>
> Thanks.
>
> At some point you have to at least make some attempt to understand
something here. IRB is again your friend here. While I get that you are
learning this - you cannot just sit there like a lump on a log and expect
things to be given to you over and over again.

Would you please at least try some variants of things to see if you are
correct. For example,

if a[-3,2] returns a string of 2 characters what maybe does the 2 mean? How
about trying [-3,3] and seeing how many characters you get back. That might
be a great way to validate the obvious answer as to what the 2 means.

Now as to the -3 maybe you aren't counting correctly - so how about trying
this

a = "987654321"

a[-1, 1]
a[-2, 2]
a[ -3, 3]

And see what you get. The answers are very self obvious - but you really
have to put in at least some effort here....... Reading a book and never
even attempting any concepts just won't work!

John

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