# How to determine array element number in a each loop

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-determine-array-element-number-in-a-each-loop/192357>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [July 29, 2010, 12:24am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-determine-array-element-number-in-a-each-loop/192357 "2010-07-29T00:24:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![kaged](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@kaged](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kaged)\
**Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 12:24am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-determine-array-element-number-in-a-each-loop/192357/1 "2010-07-29T00:24:12Z")

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Hello all, newbie here.

The title is quite self explanatory: I am in

dummy\_array.each do |a|  
#code here  
end

and I want to know which element (the number n in nth element) of the  
dummy\_array.

Thanks in advance 🙂

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kaged](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@kaged](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kaged)\
**Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 12:41am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-determine-array-element-number-in-a-each-loop/192357/2 "2010-07-29T00:41:53Z")

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> The title is quite self explanatory: I am in
> 
> dummy\_array.each do |a|  
> #code here  
> end
> 
> and I want to know which element (the number n in nth element) of the  
> dummy\_array.

You could just put a counting variable in there:

i = 0

> dummy\_array.each do |a|  
> i = i+1  
> #code here  
> end

You can also use each\_index on the array if you’d like.

[http://ruby-doc.org/core/classes/Array.html#M002174](http://ruby-doc.org/core/classes/Array.html#M002174)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kaged](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@kaged](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kaged)\
**Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 12:44am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-determine-array-element-number-in-a-each-loop/192357/3 "2010-07-29T00:44:14Z")

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or use each\_with\_index  
[http://ruby-doc.org/core/classes/Enumerable.html#M003137](http://ruby-doc.org/core/classes/Enumerable.html#M003137)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kaged](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@kaged](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kaged)\
**Post date:** [July 30, 2010, 5:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-determine-array-element-number-in-a-each-loop/192357/4 "2010-07-30T17:51:41Z")

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On Jul 28, 6:24 pm, Kaya A. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

dummy\_array.each\_index do |i|  
a = array[i]  
end