slice_before

Creates an enumerator for each chunked elements. The beginnings of chunks are defined by pattern and the block.

If pattern === elt returns true or the block returns true for the element, the element is beginning of a chunk.

The === and block is called from the first element to the last element of enum. The result for the first element is ignored.

The result enumerator yields the chunked elements as an array. So each method can be called as follows:

enum.slice_before(pattern).each { |ary| ... }
enum.slice_before { |elt| bool }.each { |ary| ... }

Other methods of the Enumerator class and Enumerable module, such as to_a, map, etc., are also usable.

For example, iteration over ChangeLog entries can be implemented as follows:

# iterate over ChangeLog entries.
open("ChangeLog") { |f|
  f.slice_before(/\A\S/).each { |e| pp e }
}

# same as above.  block is used instead of pattern argument.
open("ChangeLog") { |f|
  f.slice_before { |line| /\A\S/ === line }.each { |e| pp e }
}

“svn proplist -R” produces multiline output for each file. They can be chunked as follows:

IO.popen([{"LC_ALL"=>"C"}, "svn", "proplist", "-R"]) { |f|
  f.lines.slice_before(/\AProp/).each { |lines| p lines }
}
#=> ["Properties on '.':\n", "  svn:ignore\n", "  svk:merge\n"]
#   ["Properties on 'goruby.c':\n", "  svn:eol-style\n"]
#   ["Properties on 'complex.c':\n", "  svn:mime-type\n", "  svn:eol-style\n"]
#   ["Properties on 'regparse.c':\n", "  svn:eol-style\n"]
#   ...

If the block needs to maintain state over multiple elements, local variables can be used. For example, three or more consecutive increasing numbers can be squashed as follows (see chunk_while for a better way):

a = [0, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9]
prev = a[0]
p a.slice_before { |e|
  prev, prev2 = e, prev
  prev2 + 1 != e
}.map { |es|
  es.length <= 2 ? es.join(",") : "#{es.first}-#{es.last}"
}.join(",")
#=> "0,2-4,6,7,9"

However local variables should be used carefully if the result enumerator is enumerated twice or more. The local variables should be initialized for each enumeration. Enumerator.new can be used to do it.

# Word wrapping.  This assumes all characters have same width.
def wordwrap(words, maxwidth)
  Enumerator.new {|y|
    # cols is initialized in Enumerator.new.
    cols = 0
    words.slice_before { |w|
      cols += 1 if cols != 0
      cols += w.length
      if maxwidth < cols
        cols = w.length
        true
      else
        false
      end
    }.each {|ws| y.yield ws }
  }
end
text = (1..20).to_a.join(" ")
enum = wordwrap(text.split(/\s+/), 10)
puts "-"*10
enum.each { |ws| puts ws.join(" ") } # first enumeration.
puts "-"*10
enum.each { |ws| puts ws.join(" ") } # second enumeration generates same result as the first.
puts "-"*10
#=> ----------
#   1 2 3 4 5
#   6 7 8 9 10
#   11 12 13
#   14 15 16
#   17 18 19
#   20
#   ----------
#   1 2 3 4 5
#   6 7 8 9 10
#   11 12 13
#   14 15 16
#   17 18 19
#   20
#   ----------

mbox contains series of mails which start with Unix From line. So each mail can be extracted by slice before Unix From line.

# parse mbox
open("mbox") { |f|
  f.slice_before { |line|
    line.start_with? "From "
  }.each { |mail|
    unix_from = mail.shift
    i = mail.index("\n")
    header = mail[0...i]
    body = mail[(i+1)..-1]
    body.pop if body.last == "\n"
    fields = header.slice_before { |line| !" \t".include?(line[0]) }.to_a
    p unix_from
    pp fields
    pp body
  }
}

# split mails in mbox (slice before Unix From line after an empty line)
open("mbox") { |f|
  emp = true
  f.slice_before { |line|
    prevemp = emp
    emp = line == "\n"
    prevemp && line.start_with?("From ")
  }.each { |mail|
    mail.pop if mail.last == "\n"
    pp mail
  }
}