# A very early Ruby problem **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [May 23, 2007, 8:11am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/a-very-early-ruby-problem/104854 "2007-05-23T08:11:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jonndailey](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/71c47a/32.png) [@Jonndailey](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jonndailey)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2007, 8:11am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/a-very-early-ruby-problem/104854/1 "2007-05-23T08:11:12Z")
In Chris P.'s book, “Learn to Program”, he asks you to write a small app. I’m having trouble writing this app and I was wondering if anyone could help me out. Here’s the excerpt: “I guess we could write a program which asks for your first, middle, and last names individually, and then adds those lengths together… hey, why don’t you do that! Go ahead, I’ll wait.” [http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/?Chapter=05](http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/?Chapter=05) I’m having a problem writing this code. I know a lot of you will look at this and think this is the easiest thing ever. I hope I catch someone like that to help me out. Any ideas? thanks a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Jonndailey](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/71c47a/32.png) [@Jonndailey](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jonndailey)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2007, 8:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/a-very-early-ruby-problem/104854/2 "2007-05-23T08:49:15Z")
On 5/23/07, Jonndailey [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I’m having a problem writing this code. I know a lot of you will look > at this and think this is the easiest thing ever. I hope I catch > someone like that to help me out. > > Any ideas? > > thanks a lot. Hi, Did you understand the program just before that? The one that asked for your full name and printed the number of characters. Would you show how much you have been able to write so far? Harry – A Look into Japanese Ruby List in English [http://www.kakueki.com/](http://www.kakueki.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Jonndailey](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/71c47a/32.png) [@Jonndailey](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jonndailey)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2007, 10:16am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/a-very-early-ruby-problem/104854/3 "2007-05-23T10:16:24Z")
Well this is rather simple. You know how to read from STDIN (= console input)? There are several ways like gets or readline. So surname = readline or surename = gets reads from the console and saves the string in the variable surname. You can get the length of a string with the length method. So surename.length gives the length of surename but realize that gets and readline also are saving the newline feed in the variable you have to cut off with chomp or length will always be 1 to high. A simple implementation looks like this: #!/usr/bin/env ruby $VERBOSE = true # outputs surname on the screen puts “surname:” # reads console input to surname surname = gets puts “middlename:” middlename = gets puts “lastname:” lastname = gets puts “total length:” # adds the lengths of the three strings after they have beeen chomped p surname.chomp.length+middlename.chomp.length+lastname.chomp.length Jonndailey wrote: > I’m having a problem writing this code. I know a lot of you will look > at this and think this is the easiest thing ever. I hope I catch > someone like that to help me out. > > Any ideas? > > thanks a lot. – greets ``` one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to ``` give birth to a dancing star ---
**Author:** ![Jonndailey](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/71c47a/32.png) [@Jonndailey](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jonndailey)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2007, 6:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/a-very-early-ruby-problem/104854/4 "2007-05-23T18:52:42Z")
Thanks a lot. I was going about it the wrong way. It looks so simple now. Thank you! ---
**Author:** ![Jonndailey](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/71c47a/32.png) [@Jonndailey](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jonndailey)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2007, 6:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/a-very-early-ruby-problem/104854/5 "2007-05-23T18:54:43Z")
Thanks a lot. I was going about it the wrong way. It looks so simple now. Thank you! ---
**Author:** ![Jonndailey](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/71c47a/32.png) [@Jonndailey](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Jonndailey)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2007, 8:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/a-very-early-ruby-problem/104854/6 "2007-05-23T20:52:59Z")
On May 23, 2007, at 2:10 AM, Jonndailey wrote: > In Chris P.'s book, “Learn to Program”, he asks you to write a small > app. I’m having trouble writing this app and I was wondering if anyone > could help me out. An excellent book. It’s where I learned to program Ruby! So you’d first want to ask for them. Remember, variables are stored from right to left. #use gets.chomp to ask for the name. Store the result in the appropriate variable. first\_name = gets.chomp middle\_name = gets.chomp last\_name = gets.chomp #Now we need to add these parts together. And you’re fabulous puts code goes here. You probably had trouble with how to ask for it, right? I know that’s where I had trouble. puts ing the phrase is just as easy - just puts each variable, and separate each with a space. The blind teaching the blind HTH ---------------------------------------------------------------| ~Ari “I don’t suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it” --1337est man alive