Removing "nil" entries from array

[Thomas Adam]

Dear All,

I have a really weird situation. I'm reading a file into an array, based
on a grep match. This works fine.....

...yet I re-ran my program using the same data file (unchanged) and now my
array is being intermittently populated with "nil" values. Using "uniq()"
doesn't remove them. Any ideas?

-- Thomas Adam

=====
Thomas Adam

"The Linux Weekend Mechanic" -- [url]www.linuxgazette.com[/url]

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[Joey Gibson]

On 9/19/2003 9:54 AM, Thomas Adam wrote:

>...yet I re-ran my program using the same data file (unchanged) and now my
>array is being intermittently populated with "nil" values. Using "uniq()"
>doesn't remove them. Any ideas?
>
>

What about using delete_if?

a = [:foo, nil, :bar, :baz, nil, nil, "testing"]
a.delete_if {|x| x == nil}
=> [:foo, :bar, :baz, "testing"]

delete_if modifies the array in place. If you want non-destuctive, use
"reject" instead.

--
Dean saor, dean saor an spiorad. Is seinn d'orain beo.

[url]http://www.joeygibson.com[/url]
[url]http://www.joeygibson.com/blog/life/Wisdom.html[/url]

[Michael Garriss]

Thomas Adam wrote:

>Dear All,
>
>I have a really weird situation. I'm reading a file into an array, based
>on a grep match. This works fine.....
>
>...yet I re-ran my program using the same data file (unchanged) and now my
>array is being intermittently populated with "nil" values. Using "uniq()"
>doesn't remove them. Any ideas?
>
>
>

[1, nil, 2, nil, 3, nil, 4].compact!
--> [1, 2, 3, 4]

....or you could use #compact if you don't want to change the array in
place.

Regards,
Michael

[Gavin Sinclair]

On Friday, September 19, 2003, 11:59:04 PM, Joey wrote:

> On 9/19/2003 9:54 AM, Thomas Adam wrote:

>>...yet I re-ran my program using the same data file (unchanged) and now my
>>array is being intermittently populated with "nil" values. Using "uniq()"
>>doesn't remove them. Any ideas?
>>
>>

> What about using delete_if?

> a = [:foo, nil, :bar, :baz, nil, nil, "testing"]
> a.delete_if {|x| x == nil}

=>> [:foo, :bar, :baz, "testing"]

> delete_if modifies the array in place. If you want non-destuctive, use
> "reject" instead.

Array#compact is designed for getting rid of nil values.

Gavin

[Jason Creighton]

On Fri, 19 Sep 2003 22:54:24 +0900
Thomas Adam <thomas_adam16@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> I have a really weird situation. I'm reading a file into an array, based
> on a grep match. This works fine.....
>
> ..yet I re-ran my program using the same data file (unchanged) and now my
> array is being intermittently populated with "nil" values. Using "uniq()"
> doesn't remove them. Any ideas?

Well, as several people have mentioned, you could use Array#compact, but
if I were you, I would try to find out why you're getting nil values.
Could you post the smallest possible code snippet + data that shows this
problem?

Jason Creighton