# Question: formatting strings from array for text files **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [July 6, 2006, 5:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-formatting-strings-from-array-for-text-files/97373 "2006-07-06T17:53:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/e99b99/32.png) [@zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zanoni)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2006, 5:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-formatting-strings-from-array-for-text-files/97373/1 "2006-07-06T17:53:46Z")
I’m not sure who to have an array format correctly when written to a text file. Doing something like myarray = [‘five’,‘four’,‘three’,‘two’,‘one’] works almost correctly but myarray = [’…/./\*.docs’] seems to write them out without linebreaks. So while I can figure out how to print them nicely using some iterator to the screen Using, File.open filename, ‘w’ do |doc| doc.write myarray end I can’t seem to figure out a way to format the strings correctly. Stuart ---
**Author:** ![zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/e99b99/32.png) [@zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zanoni)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2006, 5:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-formatting-strings-from-array-for-text-files/97373/2 "2006-07-06T17:56:55Z")
2006/7/6, Dark A. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid): > I’m not sure who to have an array format correctly when written to a text file. What does “correctly” mean? > Doing something like myarray = [‘five’,‘four’,‘three’,‘two’,‘one’] > works almost correctly but > myarray = [‘…/./\*.docs’] seems to write them out without linebreaks. This is not a print statement. What did you do to actually print it? > So while I can figure out how to print them nicely using some iterator > to the screen > Using, > File.open filename, ‘w’ do |doc| > doc.write myarray > end > I can’t seem to figure out a way to format the strings correctly. Try this: doc.write myarray.join ", " Depends on what you mean by “proper output”. Kind regards robert ---
**Author:** ![zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/e99b99/32.png) [@zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zanoni)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2006, 6:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-formatting-strings-from-array-for-text-files/97373/3 "2006-07-06T18:19:33Z")
I must have not explained myself well. Right now my file looks like this: c:/dir1/doc1.docc;/dir1/doc3.docc:/dir1/doc4.docc:/dir1/doc5.doc …i.e. no line breaks I want it took look like this: c:/dir1/doc1.doc c;/dir1/doc3.doc c:/dir1/doc4.doc c:/dir1/doc5.doc … Stuart ---
**Author:** ![zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/e99b99/32.png) [@zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zanoni)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2006, 6:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-formatting-strings-from-array-for-text-files/97373/4 "2006-07-06T18:26:33Z")
Dark A. wrote: > c:/dir1/doc5.doc > > > > ``` > > > doc.write myarray > > > > > > ``` > > > > robert > > > > – > > Have a look: [Robert K. | Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/fussel-foto/) Try using ‘doc.puts’ instead of ‘doc.write’. ‘puts’ will automatically add line breaks, whereas ‘write’ will not. -Justin ---
**Author:** ![zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/e99b99/32.png) [@zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zanoni)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2006, 6:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-formatting-strings-from-array-for-text-files/97373/5 "2006-07-06T18:46:28Z")
Thank you that was a huge improvement, still battling a few more format issues: when I open the file: It has the 3 hypens as the first line and a hyphen before every file name. Can’t I get rid of those ? * * * - c:/dir1/doc1.doc - c:/dir1/doc2.doc - c:/dir1/doc3.doc - c:/dir1/doc4.doc - c:/dir1/doc5.doc - c:/dir1/doc6.doc Stuart ---
**Author:** ![zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/e99b99/32.png) [@zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zanoni)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2006, 7:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-formatting-strings-from-array-for-text-files/97373/6 "2006-07-06T19:43:17Z")
I’d think there has to be a way. ---
**Author:** ![zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/e99b99/32.png) [@zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zanoni)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2006, 8:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-formatting-strings-from-array-for-text-files/97373/7 "2006-07-06T20:00:06Z")
Okay, I made some changes to my code. I was using .to\_yaml, without it, the extra characters are now gone. However, I’m writing this file successfully yet Ruby is returning false. So, perhaps someone would know why ? (btw, went from .docs to .mp3’s) songs = Dir[‘c:/mp3/\*.mp3’] filename = ‘songs.m3u’ File.open filename, ‘w’ do |f| f.puts songs end readlist = File.read filename puts(readlist == songs) Stuart ---
**Author:** ![zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/e99b99/32.png) [@zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zanoni)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2006, 8:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-formatting-strings-from-array-for-text-files/97373/8 "2006-07-06T20:12:52Z")
Dark A. wrote: > f.puts songs > > > > - c:/dir1/doc3.doc > > > > > > > > Stuart > > > > > [‘five’,‘four’,‘three’,‘two’,‘one’] > > > > > > > > > > Using, > > > > > > > Depends on what you mean by “proper output”. > > > > > > > Try using ‘doc.puts’ instead of ‘doc.write’. ‘puts’ will You are comparing a string to an array. File.read returns a string. Try something like: readlist = File.readlines(filename).map { |line| line.chomp} File.readlines will return an array with an element for each line. But they will then have the end-of-line character attached (added when we wrote the file), so we have to remove those with chomp. -Justin ---
**Author:** ![zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/e99b99/32.png) [@zanoni](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zanoni)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2006, 7:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-formatting-strings-from-array-for-text-files/97373/9 "2006-07-06T19:56:45Z")
Dark A. wrote: > > - c:/dir1/doc1.doc > > - c:/dir1/doc2.doc > > - c:/dir1/doc3.doc > > - c:/dir1/doc4.doc > > - c:/dir1/doc5.doc > > - c:/dir1/doc6.doc How are you building the array? What you are seeing as output must be what’s in the array, unless you are adding those hyphens at some point. Maybe do a p myarray to see exactly what is in the array. Of course, you could just do some string parsing and remove the hyphens. -Justin