Array Default Values

Ruby
1

I’d like to have my array behave like this: If I add an item to a[5],
a[0…5] will be equal to " " rather than nil. I tried to following:

irb(main):001:0> a=[" “]
=> [” "]
irb(main):002:0> a[5] = “test”
=> “test”
irb(main):003:0> a.inspect
=> “[” “, nil, nil, nil, nil, “test”]”

Is there any way to have those nils default to " "?

Thanks,
Drew

2

On 1/16/07, Drew O. [email protected] wrote:

Is there any way to have those nils default to " "?
Array.new should do what you want:

a = Array.new(5, " “) # => [” ", " ", " ", " ", " "]

Dave

3

If you know the size of the array, you could do:

a=Array.new(10, " ")

Or you could map the array afterwards:

a.map!{|e|e?’ ':e}

4

Just noticed that a.map!{|e|e?’ ':e} throws parse error on my machine,
is
this the expected behavior?

Following statements work fine:

a.map!{|e|e||’ ‘}
a.map!{|e|(e)?’ ':e}

5

On 1/16/07, David G. [email protected] wrote:

=> “[" ", nil, nil, nil, nil, "test"]”

Is there any way to have those nils default to " "?

You can also do:

a=[" “]
x=5
(x-1).times do |x|
a[x]=” "
end

It’s a bit more code, but also more flexible, filling up everything up
to
and not including 5.

6

Tamreen Khan wrote:

It’s a bit more code, but also more flexible, filling up everything up
to
and not including 5.

I should have specified the follow:

  1. I’m golfing, so short length would be preferred.
  2. I will not know the length of the array beforehand.

Thanks again :slight_smile:

-Drew