From: Dave Thomas <Dave@...>
Date: 2000-11-30T11:40:57+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:6662] Re: printing/accessing arrays and hashes

raja@cs.indiana.edu (Raja S.) writes:

> I answer to part of my earlier post I've come up with the following using
> Ruby's neat ability to extend the functionality of builtin types/classes:
> 
> class Array
>   def to_s ()
>     ans=""
>     for i in (0...self.length-1)
>       ans += self[i].to_s + ", "
>     end
>     ans += self[-1].to_s if (self.length>0)
>     return "[" + ans + "]"
>   end
> end
> 
> I take it there is no pre-defined way then?

If you don't want to use inspect, you could rewrite the above slightly 
differently:

  class Array
    def to_s
      ns = "[ " + join(", ") + " ]"
    end
  end

Array#join effectively does what you loop does: joins array elements with a 
separator between each. Have a look at

    http://www.rubycentral.com/ref/ref_c_array.html#join


Regards

Dave