Question

I am trying to learn Ruby, and arrays are giving me some trouble.
I have input that I flatten down to the pattern "name, number, name, number". I then want to make an array of 2-element arrays, each containing a name and the next number.

When I push these 2-element arrays into another array the seem to automatically flatten to a 0-dimensional array. What I want is the final array to be of size [N/2][2], N being number of names, or numbers in the input.

http://pastie.org/3542269

The puts with the comment does not happen until all of the elements from the pairs array has been printed, so it looks like this:

Name
1
Name
2
Name
3

When I expected this:

Name
1

Name
2

Name
3

I guess my questions are:

• How do I put arrays inside an array, to make a jagged one?
• How do I keep track of how many dimensions my arrays are in Ruby? It’s so much easier when you have to declare a size.

Answer 1

some_array = [[["Name 1", "value 1"], ["Name 2", "value 2"]], [["Name 3", "value 3"], ["Name 4", "value 4"]]]

array = some_array.flatten
new_array = array.each_slice(2).map do |a, b|
  [a,b]
end
#=> [["Name 1", "value 1"],
#=> ["Name 2", "value 2"],
#=> ["Name 3", "value 3"],
#=> ["Name 4", "value 4"]]

which is similar to some_array.flatten(1)