For loop in Ruby (iterating over array elements)

In Ruby the C-like for-loop is not in use. Instead of that people usually iterate over the elements of an array using the each method.


names = ['Foo', 'Bar', 'Baz']

puts names
puts


names.each { |item|
    puts item
}
puts

names.each do |item|
    puts item
end

In this example we have an array with 3 elements. At first we just printed the array as it is. We got the values on on every line. That can be useful for debugging, but it we want to go over the elements we need some kind of a loop.

The each method allows us to iterate over the elements of the array. On every iteration the variable between the pipes (item in our case) will receive the current value.

Here we have 2 examples. The first one uses curly braces to mark the beginning and the end of the block, the other one uses the do - end pair.

$ ruby examples/ruby/iterating_on_array.rb 
Foo
Bar
Baz

Foo
Bar
Baz

Foo
Bar
Baz

There is another way to iterate over the elements, but it can have a nasty side-effect and thus not recommended.

names = ['Foo', 'Bar', 'Baz']

for item in names 
    puts item
end

the code looks ok, the result is ok

$ ruby examples/ruby/for_loop_on_array.rb 
Foo
Bar
Baz

But if we have used the item variable earlier, then this for loop will overwrite that other item variable with the last value seen in the loop.

names = ['Foo', 'Bar', 'Baz']

item = 'Moose'

for item in names 
    puts item
end

puts
puts item

Note how, after the loop has finished the variable item holds 'Baz'.

$ ruby examples/ruby/for_loop_on_array_global.rb 
Foo
Bar
Baz

Baz

timestamp: 2015-02-10T13:00:01 tags:

  • each
  • for