Explaining a Ruby code snippet
- by Michael Foukarakis
I'm in that uncomfortable position again, where somebody has left me with a code snippet in a language I don't know and I have to maintain it. While I haven't introduced Ruby to myself some parts of it are quite simple, but I'd like to hear your explanations nonetheless.
Here goes:
words = File.open("lengths.txt") {|f| f.read }.split # read all lines of a file in 'words'?
values = Array.new(0)
words.each { |value| values << value.to_i } # looked this one up, it's supposed to convert to an array of integers, right?
values.sort!
values.uniq!
diffs = Array.new(0) # this looks unused, unless I'm missing something obvious
sum = 0
s = 0 # another unused variable
# this looks like it's computing the sum of differences between successive
# elements, but that sum also remains unused, or does it?
values.each_index { |index| if index.to_i < values.length-1 then sum += values.at(index.to_i + 1) - values.at(index.to_i) end } # could you also explain the syntax here?
puts "delta has the value of\n"
# this will eventually print the minimum of the original values divided by 2
puts values.at(0) / 2
The above script was supposed to figure out the average of the differences between every two successive elements (integers, essentially) in a list. Am I right in saying this is nowhere near what it actually does, or am I missing something fundamental, which is likely considering I have no Ruby knowledge?
