Beginner Stuck On Tutorial

Ruby
1

Hi all,

I’m sure this is really easy but I’m having trouble working out how to
complete a Ruby tutorial converting strings to symbols.

The idea here is to convert the strings array to symbols using .to_sym
and to push them into a symbols array. They are not converting though.
Can someone please point me in the right direction?

strings = [“HTML”, “CSS”, “JavaScript”, “Python”, “Ruby”]

symbols = []

strings.each do |language|
language.to_sym

2

Mark McNaughton wrote in post #1154045:

The idea here is to convert the strings array to symbols using .to_sym
and to push them into a symbols array. They are not converting though.
Can someone please point me in the right direction?

You’ve got the right idea, what you haven’t done is “push them into a
symbols array”.

strings = [“HTML”, “CSS”, “JavaScript”, “Python”, “Ruby”]

symbols = []

You can push one symbol into the array using: symbols << :html

strings.each do |language|
language.to_sym

Does that hint let you complete your program?

You should also look up, or experiment with, the ‘map’ method…

HTH,

Peter.

3

Hi Peter, thanks for your reply.

For some reason my pasted code did not paste fully. What I have is
this:

strings = [“HTML”, “CSS”, “JavaScript”, “Python”, “Ruby”]

symbols = []

strings.each do |language|
language.to_sym
symbols.push(language)
end

The tutorial says to use the .push method. The warning message I get
with this is “It looks like HTML isn’t a symbol.”

4

The to_sym method converts a string into a symbol and returns it, but it
does not modify the string itself. Currently your language variable
still points to a string and the symbol is returned to nowhere.

You can do either:

symbols.push(language.to_sym)

or:

symbol = language.to_sym
symbols.push(symbol)

5

Thanks Matze, I think I understand now. I believe the tutorial was
indicating that your first suggestion was what it was looking for.

Many thanks!