How to sort the strings within an array in Ruby

Question

I'm just trying to sort my strings alphabetically but while maintaining their position inside an array. For example, I have :

myArray = ["tree", "house", "show", "merit", "timer"]

and I'd like to perform an each loop on it in order to output :

myArray = ["eert", "ehosu", "hosw", and so on...]

I wanted to do something like this :

myArray.each do |x|
    x.chars.sort.join
end

For a single string that works but I guess "chars" doesn't work for multiple strings in an array. Or maybe it does and I'm not doing it right. Basically how would I modify it in order to get that output?

You are not sorting the strings, you are sorting the letters in a string. — sawa
– sawa, Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 4:43

August · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-31 01:58:40Z

2

All you need in order to make this work is to call map on myArray, instead of each.

The map method will change each element to the result of running the block on the original element.

myArray = ["tree", "house", "show", "merit", "timer"]
myArray.map do |x|
  x.chars.sort.join
end
# => ["eert", "ehosu", "hosw", "eimrt", "eimrt"]

Another thing to mention is that you are using camelCase for your variables, while the convention in Ruby is snake_case (my_array would be preferable).

answered Oct 31, 2014 at 1:58

August

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1 Comment

user3802738 Over a year ago

Very true. Thanks a lot! I knew it wouldn't be too complicated.

Darkmouse · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-06 19:39:09Z

0

You are sorting each element in the array. To do this, call the map function. I then broke down each element into multiple smaller array elements, and sorted that array. I transformed that array back into a sentence by using the join method.

myArray.map{|x|x.chars.sort{|x,y|x<=>y}.join}

=> ["eert", "ehosu", "hosw", "eimrt", "eimrt"]

edited Nov 6, 2014 at 19:39

answered Nov 6, 2014 at 18:00

Darkmouse

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