Enumerator

A class which allows both internal and external iteration.

An Enumerator can be created by the following methods.

• Kernel#to_enum

• Kernel#enum_for

• Enumerator.new

Most methods have two forms: a block form where the contents are evaluated for each item in the enumeration, and a non-block form which returns a new Enumerator wrapping the iteration.

enumerator = %w(one two three).each
puts enumerator.class # => Enumerator
enumerator.each_with_object("foo") do |item,obj|
  puts "#{obj}: #{item}"
end
# foo: one
# foo: two
# foo: three
enum_with_obj = enumerator.each_with_object("foo")
puts enum_with_obj.class # => Enumerator
enum_with_obj.each do |item,obj|
  puts "#{obj: #{item}"
end
# foo: one
# foo: two
# foo: three}

This allows you to chain Enumerators together. For example, you can map a list’s elements to strings containing the index and the element as a string via:

puts %w[foo bar baz].map.with_index {|w,i| "#{i}:#{w}" }
# => ["0:foo", "1:bar", "2:baz"]

An Enumerator can also be used as an external iterator. For example, Enumerator#next returns the next value of the iterator or raises StopIteration if the Enumerator is at the end.

e = [1,2,3].each   # returns an enumerator object.
puts e.next   # => 1
puts e.next   # => 2
puts e.next   # => 3
puts e.next   # raises StopIteration

You can use this to implement an internal iterator as follows:

def ext_each(e)
  while true
    begin
      vs = e.next_values
    rescue StopIteration
      return $!.result
    end
    y = yield(*vs)
    e.feed y
  end
end

o = Object.new

def o.each
  puts yield
  puts yield(1)
  puts yield(1, 2)
  3
end

# use o.each as an internal iterator directly.
puts o.each {|*x| puts x; [:b, *x] }
# => [], [:b], [1], [:b, 1], [1, 2], [:b, 1, 2], 3

# convert o.each to an external iterator for
# implementing an internal iterator.
puts ext_each(o.to_enum) {|*x| puts x; [:b, *x] }
# => [], [:b], [1], [:b, 1], [1, 2], [:b, 1, 2], 3