Symbol confusions!

Hi, I'm new to ruby and I'm going thru pretty good as I've done java but
the only thing, at this point, thats really bothering me is the use of
symbols like:
%w{}
%r{}
%7d etc etc..

So, is there anywhere I can find good discussions about such symbols coz
until now I'm using it blindly... thanks

···

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

Do you have a book like the Pickaxe?[1] That will go into great detail on all the features that Ruby has to offer.

Briefly, however:

%w{} is a way to turn a list of words into an array:
  %w{ one fish two fish }
  => [ "one", "fish", "two", "fish" ]

%r{} is a regular expression literal. %r{stuff.*} is like /stuff.*/ without having to quote slashes (which is the main reason to see it used if you're matching a file path, for example)

%7d is probably a format specification from Kernel#sprintf or String#% meaning a decimal value in a minimum of 7 columns:
   "%7d"%42
   => " 42"

Oh, and "Kernel#sprintf" (generally, ClassName#method) means the instance method 'sprintf' from the class (or module) 'Kernel' (so, the '%' method from the String class).

-Rob

[1] Pragmatic Bookshelf: By Developers, For Developers

Rob Biedenharn http://agileconsultingllc.com
Rob@AgileConsultingLLC.com

···

On Oct 16, 2008, at 8:07 AM, Jay Pangmi wrote:

Hi, I'm new to ruby and I'm going thru pretty good as I've done java but
the only thing, at this point, thats really bothering me is the use of
symbols like:
%w{}
%r{}
%7d etc etc..

So, is there anywhere I can find good discussions about such symbols coz
until now I'm using it blindly... thanks

So, is there anywhere I can find good discussions about such symbols coz
until now I'm using it blindly... thanks

An excellent quick resource for Ruby can be found here :

The use of % constructs is covered in the types section (in the strings,
arrays and regexen).

Your latter question about // is also covered - those are regular
expressions. A very quick reference is also included.

BTW, the best way to learn ruby itself (without rails) is to log on a
machine where it is installed and launch the irb console program. It
allows you to test snippets of code interactively :

15:41 fred@grappa:~> irb

%w(a b c d e f)

=> ["a", "b", "c", "d", "e", "f"]

%w(a b c d e f).is_a? Array

=> true

(What I type is after the >> prompt, the => is the response, i.e. what
the expression evaluates to.)

G'd luck and enjoy !

Fred

···

Le 16 octobre à 14:07, Jay Pangmi a écrit :
--
The PROPER way to handle HTML postings is to cancel the article, then
hire a hitman to kill the poster, his wife and kids, and fuck his dog
and smash his computer into little bits. Anything more is just
extremism. (Paul Tomblin in the SDM)

Jay Pangmi wrote:

Hi, I'm new to ruby and I'm going thru pretty good as I've done java but
the only thing, at this point, thats really bothering me is the use of
symbols like:
%w{}
%r{}
%7d etc etc..

Questions like these are understandable because google does not appear
to index '%'. In this case googling for "ruby cheat sheet" is a good
first step.

···

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

Rob Biedenharn wrote:

Do you have a book like the Pickaxe?[1] That will go into great
detail on all the features that Ruby has to offer.

Briefly, however:

%w{} is a way to turn a list of words into an array:
  %w{ one fish two fish }
  => [ "one", "fish", "two", "fish" ]

%r{} is a regular expression literal. %r{stuff.*} is like /stuff.*/
without having to quote slashes (which is the main reason to see it
used if you're matching a file path, for example)

%7d is probably a format specification from Kernel#sprintf or String#%
meaning a decimal value in a minimum of 7 columns:
   "%7d"%42
   => " 42"

Oh, and "Kernel#sprintf" (generally, ClassName#method) means the
instance method 'sprintf' from the class (or module) 'Kernel' (so, the
'%' method from the String class).

-Rob

[1] Pragmatic Bookshelf: By Developers, For Developers

Rob Biedenharn http://agileconsultingllc.com
Rob@AgileConsultingLLC.com

Thanks Rob you made my life lot easier.. no I don't have that book I
just have 'Agile Web Development with Rails 2nd Edt.' so, ruby is just a
small part here and hence internet has been my only source.
Also I confusion about the use of slashes:
%r{(\d{1,2}):(\d{1,2}):(\d{4})}
whats the use of forward slash here
and the '+' sign below:
split(/[^0-9]+/)
Also I think I've seen the use of other words with '%' like %w but I
don't remember which words in particular.

Thanks.

···

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

wow!! thanks guys.. Now things've already started making sense..

···

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

Jay Pangmi wrote:

Thanks Rob you made my life lot easier.. no I don't have that book I
just have 'Agile Web Development with Rails 2nd Edt.' so, ruby is just a
small part here and hence internet has been my only source.

The old, first edition version of the PragProg Programming Ruby book
(for ruby-1.6) is available for free online:
http://www.ruby-doc.org/docs/ProgrammingRuby/

The chapter entitled "The Ruby Language" goes into the constructs like
%w, %r, %q etc (near the top; scroll down to "General Delimited Input",
or click "General Delimited Input" in the index on the left hand side)

Also I confusion about the use of slashes:
%r{(\d{1,2}):(\d{1,2}):(\d{4})}
whats the use of forward slash here
and the '+' sign below:
split(/[^0-9]+/)

Scroll down to "regular expression patterns" for the answer to these.

Hopefully this will convince you to buy the 2nd edition of Programming
Ruby. Avoid the 3rd unless you're experimenting with ruby 1.9.

I have only two Ruby books: this one, plus Agile Web Development with
Rails. They are both superb.

Regards,

Brian.

···

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

Brian's and Fred's responses should help, too (esp. the link to the earlier Pickaxe)

The \d is an escape within a regular expression that's equivalent to [0-9] and + is like {1,} in regular expressions to match "one or more of...". x+ is xx* or x{1,} /[^0-9]+/ is a sequence of one or more non-digits.

-Rob

Rob Biedenharn http://agileconsultingllc.com
Rob@AgileConsultingLLC.com

···

On Oct 16, 2008, at 9:31 AM, Jay Pangmi wrote:

Rob Biedenharn wrote:

Do you have a book like the Pickaxe?[1] That will go into great
detail on all the features that Ruby has to offer.

Briefly, however:

%w{} is a way to turn a list of words into an array:
%w{ one fish two fish }
=> [ "one", "fish", "two", "fish" ]

%r{} is a regular expression literal. %r{stuff.*} is like /stuff.*/
without having to quote slashes (which is the main reason to see it
used if you're matching a file path, for example)

%7d is probably a format specification from Kernel#sprintf or String#%
meaning a decimal value in a minimum of 7 columns:
  "%7d"%42
  => " 42"

Oh, and "Kernel#sprintf" (generally, ClassName#method) means the
instance method 'sprintf' from the class (or module) 'Kernel' (so, the
'%' method from the String class).

-Rob

[1] Pragmatic Bookshelf: By Developers, For Developers

Rob Biedenharn http://agileconsultingllc.com
Rob@AgileConsultingLLC.com

Thanks Rob you made my life lot easier.. no I don't have that book I
just have 'Agile Web Development with Rails 2nd Edt.' so, ruby is just a
small part here and hence internet has been my only source.
Also I confusion about the use of slashes:
%r{(\d{1,2}):(\d{1,2}):(\d{4})}
whats the use of forward slash here
and the '+' sign below:
split(/[^0-9]+/)
Also I think I've seen the use of other words with '%' like %w but I
don't remember which words in particular.

Thanks.

Thanks Rob you made my life lot easier.. no I don't have that book I
just have 'Agile Web Development with Rails 2nd Edt.' so, ruby is just a
small part here and hence internet has been my only source.

The first edition of the pickaxe is available online http://www.rubycentral.com/book/
A little out of date (it covers ruby 1.6) but there's plenty of useful stuff in there

There's also the humble little ruby book: http://www.humblelittlerubybook.com/ which is a free download

Also I confusion about the use of slashes:
%r{(\d{1,2}):(\d{1,2}):(\d{4})}
whats the use of forward slash here
and the '+' sign below:
split(/[^0-9]+/)

/ can be used to delimit a regular expression. In a regular expression + denotes "one or more times")

Also I think I've seen the use of other words with '%' like %w but I

%r (alternative way of writing regular expressions), %x (like `), %q and %Q (like ' and " respectively) and %w are the common ones

Fred

···

On 16 Oct 2008, at 14:31, Jay Pangmi wrote:

Threre is also %s{..}:

%q{abc def} #=> String "abc def"
%s{abc def} #=> Symbol :"abc def"

Just my 2 cents :slight_smile:

Artem

···

2008/10/17 Jay Pangmi <jaeezzy@gmail.com>:

wow!! thanks guys.. Now things've already started making sense..
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

Just for fun, you can also use any delimiter you want in place of {}.

%w( see me run )

=> ["see", "me", "run"]

%q/ fun time /

=> " fun time "

%w* fun time! *

=> ["fun", "time!"]

%r# ha #

=> / ha /

--Jeremy

···

On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 3:37 AM, Artem Voroztsov <artem.voroztsov@gmail.com> wrote:

2008/10/17 Jay Pangmi <jaeezzy@gmail.com>:

wow!! thanks guys.. Now things've already started making sense..
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/\.

Threre is also %s{..}:

%q{abc def} #=> String "abc def"
%s{abc def} #=> Symbol :"abc def"

Just my 2 cents :slight_smile:

Artem

--
http://jeremymcanally.com/
http://entp.com/

My books:

http://humblelittlerubybook.com/ (FREE!)