Ruby - Array.length returning character count instead of element count

Question

I'm using Ruby 2.0 for a Rails project and am having some issues obtaining the element length of an array in the console.

First example

2.0.0-p353 :001 > search = "test"
 => "test" 
2.0.0-p353 :002 > search.split
 => ["test"] 
2.0.0-p353 :003 > search.length
 => 4

Second example

2.0.0-p353 :001 > search = "testOne, TestTwo"
 => "testOne, TestTwo" 
2.0.0-p353 :002 > search.split(/[\s,]+/)
 => ["testOne", "TestTwo"] 
2.0.0-p353 :003 > search.length
 => 16

How do I return the element count instead of the character count?

search.split.length => 1

engineersmnky
– engineersmnky

2013-12-23 19:44:31 +00:00
Commented Dec 23, 2013 at 19:44 — engineersmnky
– engineersmnky, Commented Dec 23, 2013 at 19:44

Henrik Andersson · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-23 19:17:26Z

5

Well, you're not assigning your split array that's why you're seeing the discrepancy. What you're actually doing is defining a string search and then trying to manipulate that same string.

Try this

testArray = search.split
testArray.size
>> 1

answered Dec 23, 2013 at 19:17

Henrik Andersson

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1 Comment

Henrik Andersson Over a year ago

Np, mate! :) Merry Giftgiving Day!

Simone · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-18 14:27:23Z

2

In the first example you are getting the length of the "test" string, not of the ["test"] array. You should assign it to a variable first.

i.e.:

search = "test"       # => "test"
array = search.split  # => ["test"]
array.length          # => 1

edited Jan 18, 2014 at 14:27

answered Dec 23, 2013 at 19:17

Simone

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