From: "Peña, Botp" <botp@...>
Date: 2004-02-12T12:22:20+09:00
Subject: Re: (noob) cast string to array?

David Naseby [mailto:david.naseby@eonesolutions.com.au] humbly suggested:
> >
> >c:\family\ruby>cat a1.rb
> >s = "{'this','is a','test of wits'}"	# just a string
> >t = s.gsub(/[\{}]/,'')				# no more {}
> >u = t.split(',').to_a				# 
> convert to array
> >puts "u is of class #{u.class}"
> >u.each_index {|i| puts "#{i} #{u[i]}"}
> >
> >
> >I used each_index just in case you'll doubt if it's really an
> >array. note,
> >no eval there :-)
> >
> 
> Or easier, avoiding eval again:
> 
>  u = s.scan( /[\w\s]+/ )

wow. thanks for the tip, david.

fr here:
s = "{'this','is a','test of wits'}"	# just a string
t = s.gsub(/[\{}]/,'')				# no more {}
u = t.split(',').to_a				# 
puts "u is of class #{u.class}"
u.each_index {|i| puts "#{i} #{u[i]}"}

to here:
s = "{'this','is a','test of wits'}"
u = s.scan(/[\w\s]+/)
puts "u is of class #{u.class}"
u.each_index {|i| puts "#{i} #{u[i]}"}

btw, I have a personal dislike for scan. Scan is too generic a name and the
method returns two kinds of output (array or string) depending on how you
use it.

As a result, I have created 2 sibling methods for scan:

scan_toa      #returns array, no block; method errs if block is passed
scan_tostring #returns string, with block; method errs if block isn't passed

> David

kind regards -botp