# Question : Pickaxe example

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-pickaxe-example/97497>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [July 7, 2006, 1:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-pickaxe-example/97497 "2006-07-07T13:30:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**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 7, 2006, 1:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-pickaxe-example/97497/1 "2006-07-07T13:30:09Z")

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I’m reading through part 1, blocks and iterators section. Lots to  
digest here 🙂  
Anyway, there is discussion about implementing a search for songs,  
called ‘with\_title’  
Even though the first code example is not the one that ultimately gets  
used I think for me it’s important to understand it, so I tried  
recreating it outside the actual application. I’m getting some errors  
and would appreciate some feedback.

Here is the code (I’ve used some puts statements to see what’s going on)

def with\_title (title)  
myarray = [‘Ruby Tuesday’, ‘Paint it Black’, ‘Lets Spend the Night  
Together’,  
‘Mothers Little Helper’, ‘Jumpin Jack Flash’]  
for i in 0…myarray.length

```
                        puts myarray.length # added in to debug
                        puts 'here is i: ' + i.to_s # added in to 

```

debug

```
            return myarray[i] if title == myarray[i].title

```

#leaving .title in causes an error

```
 #about undefined method
            puts 'here is myarray[i] ' + myarray[i]
          end
        end

        with_title('Paint it Black')

```

If in this line  
return myarray[i] if title == myarray[i].title \<------ I removed the  
.title from the right side of

the equality statement, myarray[i]

I get this back:

5  
here is i: 0  
here is myarray[i] Ruby Tuesday  
5  
here is i: 1

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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 7, 2006, 2:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-pickaxe-example/97497/2 "2006-07-07T14:05:29Z")

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On Jul 7, 2006, at 12:28, Dark A. wrote:

> going on)
> 
> ```
> return myarray[i] if title == myarray[i].title
> 
> ```
> 
> #leaving .title in causes an error
> 
> ```
> #about undefined method
> 
> ```

What it does is call the #title method on myarray[i], but in your  
example, myarray[i] is a String, which doesn’t have a #title method -  
hence, undefined method. I believe (my copy is at the office) that  
the example in the book uses a Song class which has the title method  
defined.

> the equality statement, myarray[i]
> 
> I get this back:
> 
> 5  
> here is i: 0  
> here is myarray[i] Ruby Tuesday  
> 5  
> here is i: 1

Which is exactly what I’d expect. myarray[1] is ‘Paint it Black’.  
The next statement after printing ‘here is i: 1’ is to return the  
current title if it matches the title being searched for. They  
match, so the method returns.

The usual idiom in Ruby omits explicit return statements, and relies  
on the language to return the value of the final expression evaluated  
in the method. An explicit return statement exits the method,  
returning the specified value immediately. In this case, it’s used  
as a way to stop the loop once a match is found, presumably with the  
assumption that either you only need the first match, or that only  
one will exist.

matthew smillie.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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 7, 2006, 10:22pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-pickaxe-example/97497/3 "2006-07-07T22:22:32Z")

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Thank you , that helps! The part that was throwing me was the ‘Ruby  
Tuesday’ myarray[0], I’m gathering since it’s the first to come before  
the puts statement it shows.

Stuart