Question

I always use a counter to check for the first item (i==0) in a loop:

i = 0
my_array.each do |item|
  if i==0
    # do something with the first item
  end
  # common stuff
  i += 1
end

Is there a more elegant way to do this (perhaps a method)?

Answer 1

You can do this:

my_array.each_with_index do |item, index|
    if index == 0
        # do something with the first item
    end
    # common stuff
end

Try it on ideone.