Formatting elements from array into a string

Question

If I have an array like this:

array = ["A", "P", "P", "L", "E"]

And I would like to use the elements of the array to build a sentence. Like for example "I would like to have an APPLE"

I think I saw something similar being done using the yield method. But not sure how to use that in this scenario.

If I just parse the array to string like this:

the_word = array.to_s

Its still is displayed as a array of strings. ["A", "P", "P", "L", "E"]

So my question is how do I get the elements of the array and formats the elements into a string, without iterating the whole sentence multiple times?

Undo · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-08 20:48:24Z

4

Use join():

1.9.3-p547 :001 > array = ["A", "P", "P", "L", "E"]
 => ["A", "P", "P", "L", "E"] 
1.9.3-p547 :002 > array.join()
 => "APPLE"

Or use it without parenthesis (kudos to Anthony's comment):

1.9.3-p547 :003 > array.join
 => "APPLE"

edited Sep 8, 2014 at 20:48

answered Sep 8, 2014 at 18:52

Undo♦

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4 Comments

Moltas Over a year ago

Thank you sir, theres alot of handy methods in ruby.

the Tin Man Over a year ago

Being able to join an array's elements into a string, using some sort of delimiter or an empty string, is a standard method or function in every language I've ever used, except assembler. So, it's not Ruby that's convenient, it's really the years of language implementors who saw the same need.

Moltas Over a year ago

Yes you're right, but Ruby seem to do the same task but with less code compared to Java.

Anthony Over a year ago

You can just do array.join (without the parens - it assumes you want to join with nothing between the elements)

Arup Rakshit · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-08 19:55:58Z

2

There is another method Array#*, called Repetition — With a String argument, equivalent to ary.join(str).

arup@linux-wzza:~> pry
[1] pry(main)> array = ["A", "P", "P", "L", "E"]
=> ["A", "P", "P", "L", "E"]
[2] pry(main)> array * ""
=> "APPLE"
[3] pry(main)>

answered Sep 8, 2014 at 19:55

Arup Rakshit

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