ruby - how to get string objects name inside loop?

Question

top, top_middle, bottom_middle and bottom are four long strings.

How can I DRY up the following given that current's string values are the same as the name of the variable being used by the_line - but not its actual variable.

Is there some sort of "variable.variable_name" for what it is?

[top,top_middle,bottom_middle,bottom].each_with_index do |the_line, i|
  current=
    case i
      when 0 then "top"
      when 1 then "top_middle"
      when 2 then "bottom_middle"
      when 3 then "bottom"
    end
  puts current
  puts the_line
end

Output is okay as is:

top
 ――      |   ――    ――   |  |   ――   |      ――    ――    ―― 
top_middle
|  |     |   __|   __|  |__|  |__   |__      |  |__|  |__|
bottom_middle
|  |     |  |        |     |     |  |  |     |  |  |     |
bottom
 ――      |   ――    ――      |   ――    ――      |   ――      |

possible duplicate of Ruby - Get a Variable's Name

nemesv
– nemesv

2013-06-15 21:22:02 +00:00
Commented Jun 15, 2013 at 21:22 — nemesv
– nemesv, Commented Jun 15, 2013 at 21:22

Darshan Rivka Whittle · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-15 21:25:45Z

Rather than having each of those related things as separate variables, I'd put the four of them together in a Hash:

lines = {
  :top           => ' ――      |   ――    ――   |  |   ――   |      ――    ――    ―― ',
  :top_middle    => '|  |     |   __|   __|  |__|  |__   |__      |  |__|  |__|',
  :bottom_middle => '|  |     |  |        |     |     |  |  |     |  |  |     |',
  :bottom        => ' ――      |   ――    ――      |   ――    ――      |   ――      |'
}

That cleans things up nicely:

lines.each do |current, the_line|
  puts current
  puts the_line
end

This produces:

top
 ――      |   ――    ――   |  |   ――   |      ――    ――    ―― 
top_middle
|  |     |   __|   __|  |__|  |__   |__      |  |__|  |__|
bottom_middle
|  |     |  |        |     |     |  |  |     |  |  |     |
bottom
 ――      |   ――    ――      |   ――    ――      |   ――      |

(If you really need current as a string, you can call to_s on it, but leaving it as a symbol is fine in this case.)

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