From: Daniel Bye <ruby@...>
Date: 2012-04-04T20:35:46+09:00
Subject: Re: Newbie loops question


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On Wed, Apr 04, 2012 at 08:26:23PM +0900, Bryan Bales wrote:
> I am learning Ruby as my first programming language using the excellent
> tutorial by Chris Pine http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/
>=20
> Everything was going well until I tried to write a simple program to
> print out the 99 bottles of beer on the wall song. Here is my code.
>=20
> int =3D 99
> while int !=3D 1
>   puts int.to_s + ' bottles of beer on the wall, ' + int.to_s + '
> bottles of beer'
>   int.to_i - 1
>   puts 'Take one down, pass it around, '+int.to_s + ' bottles of beer on
> the wall'
> end
>=20
> When I run this, I get into a loop of 99. It never subtracts one. I have
> figured out all the other programs that you are to try, but for some
> reason the problem in this is escaping me. Any help will be greatly
> appreciated.

You're not actually storing the result of subtracting 1 from int anywhere,
so as far as Ruby is concerned, it never changes.

You want something like=20

int =3D int - 1

instead of

int.to_i - 1

Note that calling to_i on int is not really necessary here, since int
already contains an integer.

Dan

--=20
Daniel Bye
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