Learning Ruby - Stuck on string comparison within an array

Question

I'm working through Learning to Program with Ruby and I am stuck on building my own sort method.

I'm struggling to figure out why the comparison method inside my recursive_sort is throwing out an error

chapter10.rb:120:in `block in recursive_sort': undefined method `<' for ["zebra"]:Array (NoMethodError)

But this works just fine...

lowest = 'zebra'
if 'cat' < 'zebra'
    lowest = 'cat'
end
puts lowest

Could someone put in the right direction to something that can help me wrap my head around this? Thanks!

puts 'Sorting Program with recursion v1.0'

# Keep two more lists around
# One for already-sorted words
# One for still - unsorted words
# Find the smallest word in the unsorted list
# push it into the end of the sorted_array

def sort some_array
    recursive_sort some_array, []
end

def recursive_sort unsorted_array, sorted_array
    lowest = unsorted_array[0]
    unsorted_array.each do |uns|
        if uns < lowest
            lowest = uns
        end
    end
    puts lowest
end

# Get a list of unsorted words into an array
orig_array = []
word = 'placeholder'
puts 'Enter a list of words to be sorted. Press enter when done.'
while word != ''
    word = gets.chomp
    orig_array.push [word]
end
orig_array.pop

puts 'This is the output of the built in sort method.'
orig_array.sort.each do |un|
    puts un
end

puts 'This is the output of Rick\'s sort method.'
sort orig_array

tckmn · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-06 14:06:29Z

2

orig_array.push [word]

Here, you are actually pushing an array into an array, so that your orig_array becomes

[["word 1"], ["word 2"], ["word 3"], ...]

Remove the [] around word to fix this, or change the .push to += or .concat, which will glue together the two arrays.

answered Mar 6, 2014 at 14:06

tckmn

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