From: Aaron Haas <aaron4osu@...>
Date: 2010-11-13T21:17:14+09:00
Subject: Re: help sorting objects by their instance field

Good morning all and thanks again for the help.

I re-did the print method as you suggested but it is not sorting by the 
persons last name. It is just printing in the order in which they were 
added to array.
Here is my print method

# sort and print addresses in alphabetical order
    def print_addresses
      @persons.sort_by {|person| person.lname}  # sorts list by lname
      @persons.each { |p| puts p }  # prints address book

    end

For a good Saturday morning laugh I included my query method.  It takes 
a name and returns any matches found.  It actually works fine!!! But I'm 
sure it could be written in 2 or 3 lines rather than  the 13 lines it 
took me. I wrote this before your help yesterday so I still made use of 
my get method.

    # query by name
    # method is case sensitive
    # prints each name that matched search parameter
    def query(name)

         i = 0
         match_counter = 0
         # iterate over the entire address book
         while (i < @persons.length)
             # set names to match with parameter name
             first_name = @persons[i].get_fname
             last_name = @persons[i].get_lname
             whole_name = first_name + " "  + last_name
             # if name matched print it.
             if (last_name.eql?(name)) || (first_name.eql?(name)) || 
(whole_name.eql?(name))   then
                 puts @persons[i].to_s
                 match_counter += 1
             end
             i += 1
           end
           # tell how many matches found
           puts "Found  #{match_counter} matches for that name."
    end

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