Arraystrange behaviour

Ruby
1

Hi all,

Running Ruby 1.8.7. And I saw Jim W.'s post about the Ruby Koans,
and I thought, what the hey! Lets do them!

So I downloaded, and what do you know! I found something I didn’t
understand!! :slight_smile:

Anyway, per class Array - RDoc Documentation it says:
“Returns nil if the index (or starting index) are out of range”.

So given array:

array = [:peanut, :butter, :and, :jelly]

One would expect:

array[4] == nil #=> true
array[5] == nil #=> true

Which works, 4 and 5 are both out of range.

However:

array[4,0] == nil #=> false
array[5,0] == nil #=> true

Huh? In actual fact array[4,0] returns an empty array. This seems in
conflict with the docs.

Can someone more enlightened please explain?

Thank you!

Mikel

2

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 3:55 AM, Mikel L. [email protected]
wrote:

array[5,0] == nil #=> true
Huh? In actual fact array[4,0] returns an empty array. This seems in
conflict with the docs.
Can someone more enlightened please explain?

As well as Rob’s reply there is this recent thread, which has an
explanation
from Matz:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse_thread/thread/f09c65251c72ab6/9a125107e3186534

extracts:
http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/368268
… So, to summarize, when indexing a position beyond the length of a
string, ruby returns nil. But when indexing a slice beyond the length
of a string, ruby returns an empty string “” for the first index
beyond and then nil.

I don’t like that this passes
assert “foo”[3] != “foo”[3,1] …

http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/368271
“foo”[3,1] is “” since when index is within the string, the sought
length will be rounded to fit in the size. And 3 (which equals to the
length of the string) is considered as touching the end of the string,
so the result length is zero. … matz.

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 4:22 AM, Rob B.
[email protected]wrote:

… Here’s a way I’ve thought about it:
Picture the array with the comma after each element …

That may - or may not! - explain this behaviour: I’ve been wondering why
the
statements with 1 (but not 2) ‘superfluous’ commas at the end don’t give
a
syntax error:
arr = [] #=> []
arr = [ 0 ] #=> [0]
arr = [ 0, ] #=> [0]; superfluous comma is ignored
arr = [ 0, 1, 2 ] #=> [0, 1, 2]
arr = [ 0, 1, 2, ] #=> [0, 1, 2]; superfluous comma is ignored
but these give: syntax error, unexpected ‘,’, expecting ‘]’

arr = [ 0, 1, 2, 3, ]

arr = [ , ]

3

On Sep 12, 2010, at 10:55 PM, Mikel L. wrote:

range".
Which works, 4 and 5 are both out of range.

Thank you!

Mikel

Well, the docs seem to describe the behavior properly. You have to
read them closely when it says “equal to the array size…” but
Programming Ruby (1.8 and 1.9) have essentially the same text.

Here’s a way I’ve thought about it:

Picture the array with the comma after each element:

[ :peanut, :butter, :and, :jelly, ]

Then the first index is how many commas to skip before starting. So 4
puts your mental cursor after the :jelly, but before the ]

[ :peanut, :butter, :and, :jelly, ]
^
Then you’re still “in” the array and take as many elements as
possible. Since there aren’t any more, array[4,0] == array[4,1000] == []

When trying to find the starting point for array[5,n], there’s no 5th
comma before the ] that ends the array. So you get nil.

It helps me so I hope this description helps you, too!

-Rob

Rob B.
[email protected] http://AgileConsultingLLC.com/
[email protected] http://GaslightSoftware.com/

4

On Sep 13, 2010, at 1:47 PM, Colin B. wrote:

syntax error:
arr = [] #=> []
arr = [ 0 ] #=> [0]
arr = [ 0, ] #=> [0]; superfluous comma is ignored
arr = [ 0, 1, 2 ] #=> [0, 1, 2]
arr = [ 0, 1, 2, ] #=> [0, 1, 2]; superfluous comma is ignored
but these give: syntax error, unexpected ‘,’, expecting ‘]’

arr = [ 0, 1, 2, 3, ]

arr = [ , ]

Well, given that Matz is a C programmer (as was I), he may have wanted
to allow:

arr = [ 0, 1, 2, 3, ]

When making C array literals, I would often do:

int arr[] = { 0 ,1 ,2 ,3 };

because it was much more likely to add another element to the end than
to the beginning of the array. In C, you couldn’t have a trailing
comma and in ruby, there has to be something to clue the parser into
the fact that there’s more to come on the next line.

-Rob

Rob B.
[email protected] http://AgileConsultingLLC.com/
[email protected] http://GaslightSoftware.com/

5

As well as Rob’s reply there is this recent thread, which has an explanation
from Matz:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse_thread/thread/f09c65251c72ab6/9a125107e3186534

Thank you so much Rob and Colin, that explains it!

Mikel

6

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 10:47 AM, Colin B.
[email protected] wrote:

However:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse_thread/thread/f09c65251c72ab6/9a125107e3186534

extracts:
http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/368268
… So, to summarize, when indexing a position beyond the length of a
string, ruby returns nil. But when indexing a slice beyond the length
of a string, ruby returns an empty string “” for the first index
beyond and then nil.

I don’t like that this passes
assert “foo”[3] != “foo”[3,1] …

Strings are weird because they act like a container where the
individual contained items look like length 1 slices, which can create
an expectation that indexing and length-1 slices with the same base
index would be the identical. But the behavior makes sense when you
think about slicing (as opposed to simple indexing) as an operation on
a container that returns a container, while indexing is an operation
on a container that returns an element.

There’s no reason to expect an equivalency between the element
returned by container[3] indexing and the container returned by
container[3,1] slicing. You should expect that the first element
(index of 0) in the container returned by the slicing would be the
same as the element returned by the indexing, and with Ruby’s existing
behavior for both Arrays and Strings where slicing out of range
returns an empty container of the same kind you sliced, that works.

container[3] == container[3,1][0]

whether container is “foo”, [:f,:o,:o], “foobar”, or [1,2,3,4,5]

If Ruby returned nil rather than an empty container from slicing past
the end of the container, than, for containers with length of 3 or
less, the counter intuitive result would be:

counter[3] != container[3,1][0]

7

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 1:47 PM, Colin B.
[email protected] wrote:

As well as Rob’s reply there is this recent thread, which has an explanati> from Matz:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse_thread/thread/f09c65251c72ab6/9a125107e3186534

Which includes this gem:

"And a tip for you; never mention PoLS again to persuade me. It’s no
use. If you have real trouble besides misunderstanding, let me know.
matz. "

I’ve long felt that the problem with the principle of least surprise
is that what’s surprising is inherently subjective. One man’s obvious
is another’s surprise.

–
Rick DeNatale

Blog: http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/
Github: rubyredrick (Rick DeNatale) · GitHub
Twitter: @RickDeNatale
WWR: http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdenatale