# Variable using problem

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/variable-using-problem/162967>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [March 16, 2009, 10:19am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/variable-using-problem/162967 "2009-03-16T10:19:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![engamocap](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/e99b99/32.png) [@engamocap](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/engamocap)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 10:19am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/variable-using-problem/162967/1 "2009-03-16T10:19:38Z")

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I have an array A = [‘XXX’,‘YYY’,‘ZZZ’,‘RRR’,‘WWW’]  
For each element of array I must execute a query on my database.  
I don’t want write this code:

A.each {  
|elem|  
case elem  
when ‘XXX’ do Model.find(:all,:select =\> ‘COD’,:group =\>  
‘COD’,:include =\> :table).map{|el| el.table.XXX}.sort  
.  
.  
.  
end  
}

I’d like this:

A.each {  
|elem|  
Model.find(:all,:select =\> ‘COD’,:group =\> ‘COD’,:include  
=\> :table).map{|el| el.table.elem}.sort  
}

But there’s a problem in this code. Can you help me? Can I write that?  
Thank you very much

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![engamocap](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/e99b99/32.png) [@engamocap](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/engamocap)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2009, 12:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/variable-using-problem/162967/2 "2009-03-16T12:18:17Z")

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On Mar 16, 9:18 am, engamocap [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> I’d like this:
> 
> A.each {  
> |elem|  
> Model.find(:all,:select =\> ‘COD’,:group =\> ‘COD’,:include  
> =\> :table).map{|el| el.table.elem}.sort
> 
> }

For a given attribute, some\_record[‘foo’] gets you the attribute  
value. You might also be interested in the send method.

Fred