Stripping characters off a string

Hi everyone,

I know this is an easy question, but I want to know the best way to do
this
(i.e. the most Rubyesque).

How do I strip the last four characters off a string of undetermined
length?
I’m sure it is a one liner and doesn’t require regexp. I currently have:

irb(main):010:0> a=‘80/tcp’
=> “80/tcp”
irb(main):011:0> a[0,a.length-4]
=> “80”

irb(main):010:0> b=‘5666/tcp’
=> “5666/tcp”
irb(main):011:0> b[0,a.length-4]
=> “5666”

Which is two lines, but I’m hoping you smart guys can help me out :wink: I’m
guessing “chop” would work, but I’m not sure if that’s the most elegant
solution

Cheers,

Chris

On Wed, 22 Oct 2008, Chris Causer wrote:

=> “80/tcp”
irb(main):011:0> a[0,a.length-4]
=> “80”

How does:

irb(main):001:0> str = “80/tcp”
=> “80/tcp”
irb(main):002:0> str[0…-4]
=> “80”
irb(main):003:0>

look?
Hugh

Isn’t it like
a = a[0…-5]
is what you are looking for?

your_string = “abcdef” # => “abcdef”
your_string[-4,4] = ‘’ # => “”
your_string # => “ab”

On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 8:11 PM, Marc H. [email protected]
wrote:

your_string = “abcdef” # => “abcdef”
your_string[-4,4] = ‘’ # => “”
your_string # => “ab”

Does that really work Marc? I always thought that

‘string’[a,b]

was to take a substring beginning at a of length b. In your case, you’d
just
get the last 4 characters ‘cdef’.

Chris Causer wrote:

your_string = “abcdef” # => “abcdef”
your_string[-4,4] = ‘’ # => “”
your_string # => “ab”

Does that really work

Yes, it does. If you copy and paste that code into irb, you’ll see the
exact
output you see above (minus the # plus newlines plus the irb prompt)

I always thought that

‘string’[a,b]

was to take a substring beginning at a of length b.

That’s right.

In your case, you’d
just get the last 4 characters ‘cdef’.

Leaving the characters “ab”, which is exactly what he showed in the code
above.

On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 4:39 PM, Evgeniy D.
[email protected]wrote:

Isn’t it like
a = a[0…-5]
is what you are looking for?

Brilliant. Thanks Evgeniy, thanks Hugh.

On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 11:22 PM, Sebastian H. <
[email protected]> wrote:

Ah, now I see. I missed the =’’ on the second line.

Thanks Marc and Sebastian, but the range method is particularly alluring
:slight_smile: