Good notes posted by Mange

See Dir#glob

See glob for more usage information and comments.

Hash#without

Here’s a small helper for doing the “opposite” of this method:

class Hash
  def without(*keys)
    cpy = self.dup
    keys.each { |key| cpy.delete(key) }
    cpy
  end
end

h = { :a => 1, :b => 2, :c => 3 }
h.without(:a)      #=> { :b => 2, :c => 3 }
h.without(:a, :c)  #=> { :b => 2 }

collect/map

If you’d like to use this method for something like Enumerable#collect, you are looking at the wrong place. This method will return the initial integer, not the values from the block.

a = 20.times { |n| n * 2 } #=> 20

Instead, use Range#collect:

a = (0...20).collect { n * 2 }

Using block version in Ruby < 1.8.7

The block usage was added in 1.8.7, so to get the same functionality in an earlier version of Ruby, you need to utilize the find method.

Here is a quick example:

match = list.find { |l| l.owner == myself }
match_index = list.index(match)

If you do some gymnastics, you can have it on one line without extra variables:

match_index = list.index(list.find { |l| l.owner == myself })

Better autopad numbers

There is a much better way than to use diwadn’s method if you want to pad numbers with zeros. Here’s my recommended way to do it:

"Number: %010d" % 12345 #=> "Number: 0000012345"

It’s very easy. First we begin our placeholder with “%”, then we specify a zero (0) to signify padding with zeros. If we omitted this zero, the number would be padded with spaces instead. When we have done that, just specify the target length of the string. At last a single “d” is placed to signify that we are inserting a number.

Please see String#% and Kernel#sprintf for more information about how to do this.

Here’s another example of how to do it:

12345.to_s.rjust(10, "0") #=> "0000012345"

See String#rjust for more information.

Any of these methods are a lot better than the method outlined below.

Differences between normal or-assign operator

Differences between this method and normal memoization with ||=:

• memoize works with false/nil values

• Potential arguments are memoized

Take the following example:

def allowed?
  @allowed ||= begin
    # Big calculation
    puts "Worked"
    false
  end
end

allowed? # Outputs "Worked"
allowed? # Outputs "Worked" again

Since @allowed is set to false (this is also applicable with nil), the ||= operator will move on the the next statement and will not be short-circuited.

When you use memoize you will not have this problem.

def allowed?
  # Big calculation
  puts "Worked"
  false
end
memoize :allowed?

allowed? # Outputs "Worked"
allowed? # No output

Now, look at the case where we have parameters:

def random(max=10)
  @random ||= rand(max)
end

random     # => 4
random     # => 4 -- Yay!
random(20) # => 4 -- Oops!

Better use memoize again!

def random(max=10)
  rand(max)
end
memoize :random

random     # => 6
random     # => 6 -- Yay!
random(20) # => 12 -- Double-Yay!
random     # => 6 -- Head a'splode

Usage

This defines attr_accessors at a class level instead of instance level.

class Foo
  cattr_accessor :greeting
end

Foo.greeting = "Hello"

This could be compared to, but is not the same as doing this:

class Bar
  class << self
    attr_accessor :greeting
  end
end

Bar.greeting = "Hello"

The difference might not be apparent at first, but cattr_accessor will make the accessor inherited to the instances:

Foo.new.greeting #=> "Hello"
Bar.new.greeting # NoMethodError: undefined method `greeting' for #<Bar:0x18e4d78>

This inheritance is also not copy-on-write in case you assumed that:

Foo.greeting  #=> "Hello"
foo1, foo2 = Foo.new, Foo.new

foo1.greeting = "Hi!"

Foo.greeting  #=> "Hi!"
foo2.greeting #=> "Hi!"

This makes it possible to share common state (queues, semaphores, etc.), configuration (max value, etc.) or temporary values through this.

Empty elements

If you want to output an empty element (self-closed) like “br”, “img” or “input”, use the tag method instead.

Usage example

Some examples:

# Remove even numbers
(1..30).reject { |n| n % 2 == 0 }
# => [1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29]

# Remove years dividable with 4 (this is *not* the full leap years rule)
(1950..2000).reject { |y| y % 4 != 0 }
# => [1952, 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000]

# Remove users with karma below arithmetic mean
total = users.inject(0) { |total, user| total += user.karma }
mean = total / users.size
good_users = users.reject { |u| u.karma < mean }

Nothing here

You’re probably looking for I18n::Backend::Simple.

Convert String to Class in Rails

ncancelliere gave us a very useful tip below, and I just want to make an addendum for it:

If you are using Rails, there is a CoreExtension for this called String#constantize.

"Foo::BarKeeper".constantize #=> Foo::BarKeeper

You can use it with String#camelize if you have to convert the name too

"foo/bar_keeper".camelize             #=> "Foo::BarKeeper"
"foo/bar_keeper".camelize.constantize #=> Foo::BarKeeper

Don’t forget to rescue NameError in case there was an invalid class name. :-)

Refactoring excessive code for selects

@garg: It is not recommended to have excessive code in the views. You should refactor your code a bit.

<%= f.select(:manufacturer_id, Manufacturer.find(:all).collect {|u| [u.name, u.id]}, :prompt => 'Select') %>

could be changed to this:

# in app/helpers/manufacturer_helper.rb
def manufacturers_for_select
  Manufacturer.all.collect { |m| [m.name, m.id] }
end

# in the view
<%= f.select(:manufacturer_id, manufacturers_for_select, :prompt => 'Select') %>

I would look into collection_select though:

<%= f.collection_select(:manufacturer_id, Manufacturer.all, :id, :name, :prompt => 'Select') %>

It’s much more clean and you don’t have to define a helper for it to be readable (altough it’s still quite long).

If you have to do this often, you should define a FormBuilder extension, so you get methods like f.manufacturer_select:

<%= f.manufacturer_select(:manufacturer_id, Manufacturer.all) %>

IMO, most projects should have a custom form builder anyway, so the addition would be very small. This is my personal opinion, so you don’t have to listen to it. :-)

Watch out for syntax errors

Watch out when you are using returning with hashes. If you would write code like

def foo(bars)
  returning {} do |map|
    bars.each { |bar| map[bar.first] = bar }
  end
end

you will get a syntax error since it looks like you tried to supply two blocks! Instead you should write it with parenthesis around the hash:

def foo(bars)
  returning({}) do |map|
    bars.each { |bar| map[bar.first] = bar }
  end
end