Re: What happens in dual sorts with nil values?

On Nov 4, 2011, at 6:11 PM, Robert Klemme wrote:

>>=20
>> `block in <top (required)>': undefined local variable or method =
`ball_map' for main:Object (NameError)
>=20
> Where does "ball_map" come from?  It's not in the code you've shown.

I tried to make the example something that was a bit more simplistic yet =
showed exactly what I was doing instead of the actual code (it's an IC =
chip ball map/signal sorting routine).  Next time I'll stick to the real =
stuff. ;)=20

>=20
>> and second, am I fooling myself into thinking that I'm sorting on =
a.age when it's not the first sort value?
>=20
> You're not fooling yourself.  But the order determines the precedence.
> The second field is only evaluated if the first fields are equal and
> so forth.
>=20

Thanks. I wasn't sure if it failed and since the first sort was done =
just didn't put up the error message, thus not really working. But I =
suspect since the only time it's coming into play is when signals, in my =
case, have the same name so it moves onto their signal value (AB[0], =
AB[1] =85 AB[10], etc. ) =85 what I was doing was creating a new array =
in the method that held the numbers so AB[10] didn't get placed after =
AB[1] in the sort. I was still running into issues during the sort, then =
I realized my error yesterday, I wasn't changing the numbers I was =
pulling out of the brackets from strings to numbers. Now that I've done =
that my sort list works perfectly.=20

As I work my way down the road with Ruby, I can't believe I stayed away =
from OOP for so long. I've had a bit of a hard time wrapping my brain =
around a few concepts, but some of the cool things I've started to do =
with it are saving me tons of time and coding. :)   -- So folks, if I =
ask what seem like idiotic questions from time to time, it's probably =
because I keep falling back to old habits of how I would have done =
things instead of how an OOP language handles things.=20

Thanks everybody for your suggestions on this one. =20

Wayne=20=