Array Comparison

Hi Guys

I have compared an array and ‘0’ is being returned which indicates to
me that that array is equal

p t = $ie.table(:index, ‘2’).to_a.flatten
p t <=> [“HINCKLEY”, “HINDHEAD”, “HINTON ST GEORGE”]

Now would it be possible for me to extract any differences from this
array (that is, when the array is not equal)?

Or should I really be using Test::Unit: to assert array equality?

aidy

On 17.08.2006 13:32, aidy wrote:

Or should I really be using Test::Unit: to assert array equality?

You can use Array#zip (block form) to determine any differences.

[“HINCKLEY”, “HINDHEAD”, “HINTON ST GEORGE”].zip(t) do |a,b|
if a != b
print "Difference: ", a.inspect, " ", b.inspect, “\n”
end
end

Kind regards

robert

Robert K. schrieb:

You can use Array#zip (block form) to determine any differences.

[“HINCKLEY”, “HINDHEAD”, “HINTON ST GEORGE”].zip(t) do |a,b|
if a != b
print "Difference: ", a.inspect, " ", b.inspect, “\n”
end
end

But note that this doesn’t work if the second array contains more
elements than the first:

[1].zip [1, 2, 3] # => [[1, 1]]

It is also problematic if the arrays can contain nil:

[nil, nil, nil].zip [nil] # => [[nil, nil], [nil, nil], [nil, nil]]

Regards,
Pit

You could always add an XOR function to the Array class.

class Array
def XOR(i)
return (i | self) - (i & self)
end

def ^(i)
return XOR(i)
end
end

It should be there already anyway, even if it is just syntactic sugar…

Now would it be possible for me to extract any differences from this
array (that is, when the array is not equal)?

Or should I really be using Test::Unit: to assert array equality?

aidy

t = [2, 3, 4, 5]

use == if you want to test for equality

p t == [2, 3, 4, 5] # => true

if t != [3, 4, 5, 6]

you may use the array set methods to show the differences

p t - [3, 4, 5, 6] #=> [2]
p [3, 4, 5, 6] - t #=> [6]
p ([3, 4, 5, 6] | t) - ([3, 4, 5, 6] & t) #=> [6, 2]
end

cheers

Simon