Re: Ruby Challenge

On Nov 5, 2011, at 5:59 AM, teresa nuagen wrote:

> Thomas Sawyer wrote in post #1030247:
>> Why does this sound like a school assignment?
>>=20
>>    file =3D 'sample.txt'
>>    freq =3D Hash.new{|h,k| h[k] =3D 0}
>>    File.read(file).scan(/\w+/) do |w|
>>      freq[w] +=3D 1
>>    end
>>    freq.each do |w,c|
>>      puts "#{c} #{w}"
>>    end
>>=20
>> Untested.
>=20
>=20
> There should be an "if" / "else" statement in a looping method, to add=20=

> the word in list or word count.

Careful, you don't want to annoy the people who help you. The code =
solves your problem admirably: paste this (don't copy the ### marks) =
into a file and run it, and you will get exactly the output you wanted:

###

freq =3D Hash.new{|h,k| h[k] =3D 0}
DATA.read.scan(/\w+/) do |w|
	freq[w.downcase] +=3D 1
end
freq.each.sort_by {|w,c| [c,w] }.each do |w,c|
	puts "#{c} #{w}"
end

__END__

If the text file contained this sentence, the output of your program
would look something like this

###

Before claiming a proposed solution to a 'challenge' you posted is =
missing something, have the decency at least to run it to see if it =
works. In this case, Intransition's solution sets the counter for each =
word to zero (this is what the first line does: if you add a word to the =
freq hash for the first time the counter is set to zero). The scan =
method is your 'looping method' and executes the block at each =
iteration. Finally, `freq[w.downase] +=3D 1` increases the counter for =
each word. By defining, the zero default, Intransition's solution =
doesn't require your if/else statement. So, please, next time, instead =
of simply stating 'there should be an if/else statement there', how =
about 'cool solution! Can you explain to me why this works without an =
explicit if/else statement?'.