Please explain this "Why's" example please

ruby-talk
1

I'm reading Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby.

I don't understand this example.

···

--------------------------------------------------------
require 'wordlist'

# Get evil idea and swap in code words

print "Enter your new idea: "

idea = gets

code_words.each do |real, code|
   idea.gsub!( real, code )
end
---------------------------------------------------------
I'm assuming that, if I run the program, there would be a message on the
screen that says "Enter your new idea:" and a text box for me to type
something.

After I type a word (and press an 'OK' button?), then what? Can anyone
explain to me the role of Gets here? And also the Each block please. You
may also give me another example with Gets and Each.

Explain it to me as if I'm a moron please. No big words, no complicated
programming terms, none of that. I'm a beginner.

Thanks so much for your time. =)
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

2

First things first there wouldn't be an entry box and an ok button, it would be on a command line (just text).
gets is a method which when run will wait until the user enters something and then presses enter and then it returns what the user enters (so in the example what you enter gets stored in idea (which is a variable).
each is a very useful method. In this example I assume code_words is a hash (you put lots of info in the hash, and give each piece of data a key so you can access it which is more data). For each piece of data the code between each and end is run (in this case idea.gsub!(real,code)) with real being the key and code being the data.

Example:
If code_words was {"world"=>"planet", "hello"=>"hi"} and you input hello world then idea would be made to equal hi planet.
Weirdly this code doesn't do anything with the idea once it has changed it but I assume that this is not the whole code or something.

···

On 06/06/10 08:20, Kaye Ng wrote:

I'm reading Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby.

I don't understand this example.
--------------------------------------------------------
require 'wordlist'

# Get evil idea and swap in code words

print "Enter your new idea: "

idea = gets

code_words.each do |real, code|
    idea.gsub!( real, code )
end
---------------------------------------------------------
I'm assuming that, if I run the program, there would be a message on the
screen that says "Enter your new idea:" and a text box for me to type
something.

After I type a word (and press an 'OK' button?), then what? Can anyone
explain to me the role of Gets here? And also the Each block please. You
may also give me another example with Gets and Each.

Explain it to me as if I'm a moron please. No big words, no complicated
programming terms, none of that. I'm a beginner.

Thanks so much for your time. =)

3

First of all, it's "gets" and "each" - ruby is case sensitive :slight_smile:

Okay, so "gets" waits for the user to enter a line of text (that is,
to type in a bunch of characters and then hit enter). It then returns
that text as a string. Here's an example:

while true
  print "say something: "
  a = gets
  puts "you entered #{a}"
end

To understand "each" you must first understand blocks. Every method in
ruby has an implicit optional argument which is a block of code. The
block is an anonymous function that is called by the method via the
"yield" statement. An example will make it clearer:

def run_a_block(arg1, arg2)
  puts "Argument 1 was #{arg1}"
  puts "Argument 2 was #{arg2}"
  puts "Now going to run the block with arguments foo and 42"
  yield ["foo", 42]
  puts "Okay, the block has run, now we are back in the run_a_block method"
end

run_a_block("hello", "world") do |x, y|
  puts "Now we are inside the block. run_a_block passed us arguments
#{x} and #{y}"
end

The "do |x,y| ... end" bit is the block. The |x, y| is the argument
list, and means that the calling method is expected to yield a list of
two values. When 'yield' is called, control passes from the calling
method to the block, and when it is done it returns to the line after
yield.

Okay, now for "each". "each" is a method of a collection. It expects a
block, and yields each element of the collection in turn to the block.

list = [1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 31]
list.each do |number|
  puts "Got element #{number} from the list"
end

There is one more subtlety in _why's code example - when a block is
passed a list of several elements, it can either capture them as a
list or as individual elements (this is called "destructuring"). So if
we call each on a hash table, which yields [key, value] pairs, we can
say either

h = {"hello" => "world", "foo" => "bar", "baz" => "quux"}
h.each do |pair|
  puts "key is #{pair[0]}"
  puts "value is #{pair[1]}"
end

# or this way

h. each do |key, value|
  puts "key is #{key}"
  puts "value is #{value}"
end

martin

···

On Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 12:50 PM, Kaye Ng <sbstn26@yahoo.com> wrote:

After I type a word (and press an 'OK' button?), then what? Can anyone
explain to me the role of Gets here? And also the Each block please. You
may also give me another example with Gets and Each.

4

Not everything in this world are text boxes and buttons :wink: -- there are good ol' input and output streams (character based) that are dealt with by means of print, puts, gets and other methods of Ruby class IO. On Windows, which is most likely what you use, it is something you would see in and enter from a cmd.exe window (sometimes called Console).

Gennady.

···

On Jun 6, 2010, at 12:20 AM, Kaye Ng wrote:

I'm reading Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby.

I don't understand this example.
--------------------------------------------------------
require 'wordlist'

# Get evil idea and swap in code words

print "Enter your new idea: "

idea = gets

code_words.each do |real, code|
  idea.gsub!( real, code )
end
---------------------------------------------------------
I'm assuming that, if I run the program, there would be a message on the
screen that says "Enter your new idea:" and a text box for me to type
something.

After I type a word (and press an 'OK' button?), then what? Can anyone
explain to me the role of Gets here? And also the Each block please. You
may also give me another example with Gets and Each.

5

From Why's example:

···

_________________________________________________
require 'wordlist'

# Get evil idea and swap in code words

print "Enter your new idea: "

idea = gets

code_words.each do |real, code|
   idea.gsub!( real, code )
end
__________________________________________________

Where is the beginning of 'end'? Is it 'require'?
(Like 'If' would be the beginning of an If statement (or is it block))

Thanks guys!
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

6

Also, in Why's example, the words 'real' and 'code' are NOT variables,
correct?
Are they just random words that don't need to be defined? Like can I use
'monkey' and 'ape' instead?

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

7

Difference between puts and print, please? Thanks much!

···

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

8

From Why's example:
_________________________________________________
require 'wordlist'

# Get evil idea and swap in code words

print "Enter your new idea: "

idea = gets

code_words.each do |real, code|
  idea.gsub!( real, code )
end
__________________________________________________

Where is the beginning of 'end'? Is it 'require'?
(Like 'If' would be the beginning of an If statement (or is it block))

Thanks guys!
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

The beginning is do. do ... end. This is called a code block. It is
basically a method that you create in the middle of your code, as you need
it. The method you are calling can in turn call your block to see how you
want to handle some particular piece of code that should be custom to that
one calling of the method. In your case, the method knows how to access each
of the code words. But it doesn't know what you want to do with them. So you
give it a block telling it what you want to do, and as it accesses the
elements, it calls your block for each of them, passing them them into the
block (your block says it is willing to receive them by placing "real" and
"code" inside the pipes). In your case, the block looks through your idea
and when it finds one of the real words, it replaces them with one of the
code words. This brings up one of the important differences between blocks
and methods, blocks can interact with the environment they are defined in.
Methods cannot.

···

On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 1:07 AM, Kaye Ng <sbstn26@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 1:11 AM, Kaye Ng <sbstn26@yahoo.com> wrote:

Also, in Why's example, the words 'real' and 'code' are NOT variables,
correct?
Are they just random words that don't need to be defined? Like can I use
'monkey' and 'ape' instead?

Can you think of an easy way to find out? :slight_smile:

9

Briefly, puts adds a newline at the end but print does not. Try them both, the difference should be clear.

Ben

···

On Jun 7, 2010, at 11:30 PM, Kaye Ng <sbstn26@yahoo.com> wrote:

Difference between puts and print, please? Thanks much!

10

All of these questions (and more) can be answered by reading this excellent (and free) guide: Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide

···

On 2010-06-07 23:30:40 -0700, Kaye Ng said:

Difference between puts and print, please? Thanks much!

--
Rein Henrichs

http://reinh.com