[ruby-talk:7836] Re: Next amusing problem: talking integers (was Re: Code sample for improvement)

On Thu, 21 Dec 2000, Kevin Smith wrote:

> Dan Schmidt <[e-mail]> wrote:
> >David Alan Black <[e-mail]> writes:
> >
> >| Input:   123456
> >| Output:  "one-hundred twenty-three thousand four-hundred fifty-six"
> >
> >I don't like hyphens, but it would be easy enough to put them in:
> >
> >def english_num (num)
> >  ones_names = '.one.two.three.four.five.six.seven.eight.nine.ten.eleven.twelve.thirteen.fourteen.fifteen.sixteen.seventeen.eighteen.nineteen'.split('.')
> 
> Nice way to set up an array of strings. I'll 
> borrow it. It beats ['', 'one', 'two'...]. Also, 

Well, it depends what you mean by "beat" :-)

   require 'benchmark'
   include Benchmark

   bm do |x|
     x.report { 100000.times do
	 a = ['', 'one', 'two', 'three', 'four', ........ ]
       end }
     x.report { 100000.times do
	 a = '.one.two.three.four..........'.split '.'
       end }

   # Here's another possibility:
     x.report { 100000.times do
	 a = %w{one two three four .........'}.unshift ''
       end }
   end

   # 100000 iterations on my trusty Pentium 200:

	 user     system      total        real
     6.890000   0.000000   6.890000 (  6.897994)
    17.920000   0.000000  17.920000 ( 17.925662)
     9.810000   0.000000   9.810000 (  9.811511)


It's hard to imagine circumstances where you'd be running tens of
thousands of these at a time, but anyway....

Seeing the various solutions is cool.  I didn't quite find time to
write one today, and I think I may have been rendered redundant.  (The
Tom Sawyer approach to code generation :-)


David

-- 
David Alan Black
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Web:  http://pirate.shu.edu/~blackdav