# String Comparison Problems

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/string-comparison-problems/151912>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [October 27, 2008, 8:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/string-comparison-problems/151912 "2008-10-27T20:41:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mdrisser](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/f4b2a3/32.png) [@mdrisser](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mdrisser)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 8:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/string-comparison-problems/151912/1 "2008-10-27T20:41:03Z")

</div>

Hi All,

I’m having a baffling problem with string comparisons in Ruby.

The following code just does not act as expected.  
measures\_full = {‘PROP 1A’=\>‘Safe, Reliable High-Speed Train Bond  
Act’,  
‘PROP 2’ =\>‘Standards for Confining Farm Animals’,  
‘PROP 3’ =\>‘Children’s Hospital Bond Act. Grant  
Program.’,  
‘PROP 4’ =\>‘Parent Notif. Before Terminating Minor’s  
Pregnancy’,  
‘PROP 5’ =\>‘Nonviolent Drug Offense. Sentencing,  
Parole, Rehab’,  
‘PROP 6’ =\>‘Police, Law Enforcement Funding. Criminal  
Laws.’,  
‘PROP 7’ =\>‘Renewable Energy Generation’,  
‘PROP 8’ =\>‘Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to  
Marry’,  
‘PROP 9’ =\>‘Criminal Justice System. Victims’ Rights.  
Parole.’,  
‘PROP 10’=\>‘Altern. Fuel Vehicles and Renewable Energy  
Bonds’,  
‘PROP 11’=\>‘Redistricting’,  
‘PROP 12’=\>“Veterans’ Bond”}  
fixed\_ca = Array.new  
prop = String.new  
lines = Array.new  
i = 1;  
j = 0;

puts ‘’  
puts “-----------------------READING------------------------”

# Add prop numbers to props for CA feed

open(‘2008-CA\_ElectionResults.csv’, ‘r’) do |f|  
line = f.read  
lines = line.split("\n") # Not really sure why this is necessary,  
# but for some reason its the only way to  
# get each line into its own place in the  
array.  
j += 1  
#puts j  
end

puts “#{lines.length} entries”

lines.each do |line|  
vals = line.split(’|’)

measures\_full.each do |key, value|  
if value.eql? vals[0]  
puts vals[0]  
prop = “#{key} - #{value}|#{vals[1]}|#{vals[2]}|#{vals[3]}|  
#{vals[4]}|#{vals[5]}|#{vals[6]}|#{vals[7]}|#{vals[8]}|#{vals[9]}”  
puts prop  
break  
else  
prop = line  
break  
end  
end  
#puts prop  
fixed\_ca \<\< prop  
i = i + 1  
end

puts ‘’  
puts “-----------------------WRITING------------------------”  
open(‘2008-CA\_Fixed.csv’, ‘w’) do |f|  
fixed\_ca.each do |e|  
f.puts e  
end  
end

The file I’m opening contains:  
U.S. President|0|0||Barack Obama|Democratic|9075132|58.1|09/24/2008|  
12:38:04  
U.S. President|0|0||John McCain|Republican|2251793|14.4|09/24/2008|  
12:38:04  
U.S. President|0|0||Alan Keyes|American Independent|2278411|14.6|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
U.S. President|0|0||Cynthia McKinney|Green|998072|6.3|09/24/2008|  
12:38:04  
U.S. President|0|0||Bob Barr|Libertarian|674352|4.3|09/24/2008|  
12:38:04  
U.S. President|0|0||Ralph Nader|Peace and Freedom|362310|2.3|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
State Senate District 39|0|0||Christine Kehoe|Democratic|136932|33.0|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
State Senate District 39|0|0||Jeff Perwin|Republican|261331|63.0|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
State Senate District 39|0|0||Jesse Thomas|Libertarian|16681|4.0|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
State Assembly District 66|0|0||Grey Kenneth Frandsen|Democratic|  
122204|60.7|09/24/2008|12:38:04  
State Assembly District 66|0|0||Kevin D. Jeffries|Republican|79276|  
39.3|09/24/2008|12:38:04  
State Assembly District 73|0|0||Judy Jones|Democratic|116610|53.4|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
State Assembly District 73|0|0||Diane L. Harkey|Republican|92806|42.4|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
State Assembly District 73|0|0||Andrew “Andy” Favor|Libertarian|9332|  
4.2|09/24/2008|12:38:04  
State Assembly District 74|0|0||Brett Deforest Maxfield|Democratic|  
28453|12.9|09/24/2008|12:38:04  
State Assembly District 74|0|0||Martin Garrick|Republican|129486|59.2|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
State Assembly District 74|0|0||Paul King|Libertarian|60934|27.9|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
State Assembly District 75|0|0||Darren Kasai|Democratic|214795|93.1|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
State Assembly District 75|0|0||Nathan Fletcher|Republican|808|0.3|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
State Assembly District 75|0|0||John M.|Libertarian|15359|6.6|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Standards for Confining Farm Animals|0|0||Yes||5200770|6.6|09/24/2008|  
12:38:04  
Standards for Confining Farm Animals|0|0||No||10439300|6.6|09/24/2008|  
12:38:04  
Children’s Hospital Bond Act. Grant Program.|0|0||Yes||9756410|6.6|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Children’s Hospital Bond Act. Grant Program.|0|0||No||5883660|6.6|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Parent Notif. Before Terminating Minor’s Pregnancy|0|0||Yes||8111423|  
6.6|09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Parent Notif. Before Terminating Minor’s Pregnancy|0|0||No||7528647|  
6.6|09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Nonviolent Drug Offense. Sentencing, Parole, Rehab|0|0||Yes||9168058|  
6.6|09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Nonviolent Drug Offense. Sentencing, Parole, Rehab|0|0||No||6472012|  
6.6|09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Police, Law Enforcement Funding. Criminal Laws.|0|0||Yes||10148640|6.6|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Police, Law Enforcement Funding. Criminal Laws.|0|0||No||5491430|6.6|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Renewable Energy Generation|0|0||Yes||7200459|6.6|09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Renewable Energy Generation|0|0||No||8439611|6.6|09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry|0|0||Yes||7924434|6.6|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry|0|0||No||7715636|6.6|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Criminal Justice System. Victims’ Rights. Parole.|0|0||Yes||5266581|  
6.6|09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Criminal Justice System. Victims’ Rights. Parole.|0|0||No||10373489|  
6.6|09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Safe, Reliable High-Speed Train Bond Act|0|0||Yes||5552432|6.6|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Safe, Reliable High-Speed Train Bond Act|0|0||No||10087638|6.6|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Altern. Fuel Vehicles and Renewable Energy Bonds|0|0||Yes||6104326|6.6|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Altern. Fuel Vehicles and Renewable Energy Bonds|0|0||No||9535744|6.6|  
09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Redistricting|0|0||Yes||10740910|6.6|09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Redistricting|0|0||No||4899160|6.6|09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Veterans’ Bond|0|0||Yes||5284610|6.6|09/24/2008|12:38:04  
Veterans’ Bond|0|0||No||10355460|6.6|09/24/2008|12:38:04

I _SHOULD_ be getting 24 matches, but for some reason I’m only getting  
2 and those are for measure\_full[‘PROP 11’]. I’ve even gone so far as  
to copy and paste the values from the CSV file into the corresponding  
places in the Hash, but it makes no difference, only  
measure\_full[‘PROP 11’] matches as expected.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mdrisser](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/f4b2a3/32.png) [@mdrisser](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mdrisser)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2008, 9:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/string-comparison-problems/151912/2 "2008-10-27T21:50:06Z")

</div>

mdrisser wrote:

> I _SHOULD_ be getting 24 matches, but for some reason I’m only getting  
> 2 and those are for measure\_full[‘PROP 11’]. I’ve even gone so far as  
> to copy and paste the values from the CSV file into the corresponding  
> places in the Hash, but it makes no difference, only  
> measure\_full[‘PROP 11’] matches as expected.

Looks like the whitespace characters don’t match… maybe try replacing  
the whitespaces with a regular space like this:

if value.eql? vals[0].gsub(/\s/, ’ ')  
…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mdrisser](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/f4b2a3/32.png) [@mdrisser](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mdrisser)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2008, 1:57am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/string-comparison-problems/151912/3 "2008-10-28T01:57:35Z")

</div>

On Tue, 28 Oct 2008, mdrisser wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> I’m having a baffling problem with string comparisons in Ruby.
> 
> The following code just does not act as expected.  
> measures\_full = {‘PROP 1A’=\>‘Safe, Reliable High-Speed Train Bond  
> Act’,  
> ‘PROP 2’ =\>‘Standards for Confining Farm Animals’,  
> […]
> 
> # Add prop numbers to props for CA feed
> 
> open(‘2008-CA\_ElectionResults.csv’, ‘r’) do |f|  
> line = f.read  
> lines = line.split("\n") # Not really sure why this is necessary,  
> # but for some reason its the only way to  
> # get each line into its own place in the  
> array.

# Or your could use readlines instead, which would give you the array

# straight away. Your data looks simple enough for the CSV library

# (or FasterCSV if you need speed) to handle this.

> j += 1  
> #puts j  
> end
> 
> puts “#{lines.length} entries”
> 
> lines.each do |line|  
> vals = line.split(’|’)
> 
> measures\_full.each do |key, value|  
> # It might be instructive to :  
> puts value.dump  
> puts vals[0].dump  
> # or puts " #}value.dump} #{vals[0].dump}" if you prefer.

> ```
> if value.eql? vals[0]
> 
> ```

## ------------------------------------------------------------ Hash#select hsh.select {|key, value| block} =\> array

```
 Returns a new array consisting of +[key,value]+ pairs for which the
 block returns true. Also see +Hash.values_at+.

    h = { "a" => 100, "b" => 200, "c" => 300 }
    h.select {|k,v| k > "a"} #=> [["b", 200], ["c", 300]]
    h.select {|k,v| v < 200} #=> [["a", 100]]

```

> ```
> puts vals[0]
> 
> ```

> fixed\_ca \<\< prop
> 
> The file I’m opening contains:  
> U.S. President|0|0||Barack Obama|Democratic|9075132|58.1|09/24/2008|  
> 12:38:04  
> […]  
> State Assembly District 75|0|0||Nathan Fletcher|Republican|808|0.3|  
> 09/24/2008|12:38:04  
> State Assembly District 75|0|0||John M.|Libertarian|15359|6.6|  
> 09/24/2008|12:38:04

And there’s nothing here to mark the change in data? No count at the  
start of the file?

> Standards for Confining Farm Animals|0|0||Yes||5200770|6.6|09/24/2008|  
> 12:38:04  
> Standards for Confining Farm Animals|0|0||No||10439300|6.6|09/24/2008|  
> 12:38:04  
> […]  
> places in the Hash, but it makes no difference, only  
> measure\_full[‘PROP 11’] matches as expected.

```
    Hugh
```