[ruby-talk:5293] RE: RFC: Enumerable#every(n)

Hello Musha-san,

> Enumerable#every(n)
> 
>     Returns an Enumerable object that yields the iterator block for
>     every <n> elements.  The block is yielded with <n> arguments for
>     each, and if the number of elements are short by <n> for the last
>     yield, nil's are filled as necessary.

I like the functionality very much. But I have to say I didn't understand
the real semantics when I briefly tried to follow discussion at ruby-dev,
nor when I read the source code (I just got confused, I think your sources
are the normal Ruby source quality, so nothing wrong with them). Then I read
this explanation, and I'm just probably quite tired, but didn't understand
it even then.

Then I remembered the use of arrays in the sources, and the second example
cleared up things. If I may try to describe the functionality it'd be like
this:

Enumerable#every(n)

  Returns an Every object, which implements Enumerable interface. 
  The Every object has an reference to the receiver of this method call,
  and <n> specifies the count of elements of original object to be grouped.

Every#each

  Iterates through the referenced object by calling it's method each and
  gathering elements. After <n> elements gathered in an array it yields 
  the array to the associated iterator block. 

  If the last group doesn't get filled from original's enumeration,
  it's padded with nils.

  Thus Every#each regroups original Enumerable#each results.

  Example:   every = ["1", "a", "2", "b", "3"].every(2)
             p every
             every.each {|ary| p ary}
  Outputs:   #<Every:0xa06cbd8>
             ["1", "a"]
             ["2", "b"]
             ["3", nil]

  As all methods defined in the module Enumerable rely on method each
  which the class have to provide, everything in Enumerable is applicable
  to an Every object.

  Example:   # print first grouping which first element
             # contains some text
             ary =  ["1", "a", "2", "b", "3"]
             p ary.every(3).find {|ary| ary[0] =~ /\w+/ }
  Outputs:   ["b", "3", nil]

> 1) Is the name "every" appropriate?

I think Every, and methods, would be better named as Group. Thus leading to

$ ruby -e 'p (("A".."Z").group(4).find_all{|i| ...

> 2) Is it worth being integrated to the standard Enumerable class?

Can't say for sure. I think it is, as there are some happy side-effects if
it's redefined. Someone remembers a ruby-talk thread where we discussed how
to gather all the output of an iterator into an array. Well, provided we
know how much we should get we could say

    obj.group(this_many).each {|ary_of_all_elements_gathered| ... }

Of course we could improve this. As there's already Enumerable#to_a we can
say the above example better as 

    all_elements = obj.group(this_many).to_a

If there's a way to express we want the Group object gather everything it
would be even simpler

    all_elements = obj.group.to_a     # def group(n=nil)

And for convenience we would probably get

    all_elements = obj.suck_until_theres_nothing_but_an_array_in_the_end

Anyway, the trick to get Every work like this is to be able to pass
every_each_i wrapped into a proc, which could then be associated with a
method. Or maybe the Proc or Method which should be collected could be
provided to Every object.

  def get_ten_random_numbers
    10.times { yield rand; }
  end

  nums_in_5_groups = Every.new(5, self.method("get_ten_random_numbers"))

This side note is no real proposition, just a reminder that there has been
need for something like this earlier; then they just didn't realize they'd
get something better :).

Even in current form I'd welcome this new functionality, as it's no massive
overkill, just a small creature which does just one thing and does it well.

	- Aleksi