I have a method that is basically a loop and it calls itself at the end each time. What is the best way for the method to not call itself when the date reaches a certain point? Each iteration through adds 1 day and basically processes stats for that day. It looks like the below:
def loop(start_day)
date = start_day
#do a bunch of stuff
date = date +1.day
if date > Time.now
puts "loop should be over"
end
loop(date)
end
Each iteration through adds 1 day
That's not true for the code you've posted. In your code you add 1 day to the start date once and then you keep processing the same date over and over again because you recurse on the old date (start_date), not the incremented date (date).
What is the best way for the method to not call itself when the date reaches a certain point?
Just put the recursive call inside an if or, in this case, inside of the else of the if that you already have.
Since you set date to start_date immediately, it seems there's no point in having both. Here's the more canonical form of doing recursion:
def loop(date)
return if date > Time.now
#do a bunch of stuff
loop(date + 1.day)
end
Update: If it's not obvious to you that recursion isn't necessary here, in real life, it would make more sense to do something like this:
def process_from(date)
while date <= Time.now
# Process date
date += 1.day
end
end
What about this?
def loop(start_day)
return "loop should be over" if start_day >= Time.now
#...
loop(modified_date)
end
or...
def loop(start_day)
date = start_day.dup
time = Time.now
date += 1.day while date <= time
'loop should be over'
end
It seems like you want to iterate over all days from starting date to today. Then maybe this is even more simple:
def map_date(date)
(date.to_date..Date.today).map do |d|
d.strftime("Today is %A")
end
end
You must have base case (stop case) for recursive function;
example:
def loop(date)
if date == certain_point
return [something_for_stop]
end
loop(date - 1)
end
#do a bunch of stuffwhereas anuntilloop will clear out the variables with each loop?