Array pointer arithmetic in Ruby

Question

Yes I know Ruby doesn't have pointers, but that's the closest I could get to describing what I want to do. In C++, I can increment a pointer to an array and it will point to the second element of the array as the start (basically like splicing from position 1 to size-1). Is there a similar trick in ruby? I have a set of steps in an array, and want to call a method "next_step" that will move one down the array. Can I do this without necessarily having another ivar called step_num (the current index)?

EDIT: I can't just splice the array because it is encapsulated in an object and I need to keep it that way. I don't want copies floating around.

Daniele Pallastrelli · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-20 15:29:56Z

3

You can use an enumerator:

a = [ 1, 2, 3 ]
e = a.to_enum

e.next    # => 1
e.next    # => 2
e.next    # => 3

answered Feb 20, 2012 at 15:29

Daniele Pallastrelli

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2 Comments

Chris Over a year ago

What does that do to nested objects? The things in the array are objects that themselves contain objects. Will those be flattened or will it just cycle through them?

Chris Over a year ago

It does return objects, so this is exactly what I needed. Thanks!

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