From: Wayne Brissette <wbrisett@...>
Date: 2013-01-05T21:40:15+09:00
Subject: Using and Querying Struct

I'm trying to use the Stuct class to store some data. In my case, a bunch of data. But, in simplistic terms I've come up with the following example of what I'm looking for. 

class Mailinglist <
	Struct.new(:f_name, :l_name, :city)
end

As an example, let's say I have two people John Smith and Jane Smith who live in Smithville. Is there an easy way to query an array containing Structs to determine of :l_name, and :city of with the array match and only produce one item from the array? 

I know you could sort the array so all the data is sorted on l_name and then city. That would give you some order to the data: 

#<Struct Mailinglist f_name="Mike", l_name="Jones", city="Pineville">
#<Struct Mailinglist f_name="Jane", l_name="Smith", city="Smithville">
#<Struct Mailinglist f_name="John", l_name="Smith", city="Smithville">
#<Struct Mailinglist f_name="Sally", l_name="Taulton", city="Ashville">

but would you have to iterate through the array to find all the matches to city, then l_name? I wouldn't think so, but I'm not sure how else to do it at this point. 

Wayne