Question

I want to divide a string into chunks of unequal size (as given by lens). My code works, but does not feel like idiomatic Ruby. Any suggestions?

s = "red   4827spoon       jimmy john   "
lens = [6, 4, 12, 13]
i = 0
row = lens.collect {|len|
  i += len
  s[i-len, len].strip
}

Gives

["red", "4827", "spoon", "jimmy john"]

Answer 1

s = "red   4827spoon       jimmy john   "
lens = [6, 4, 12, 13]
p s.unpack(lens.map{ |i| "A#{i}" }.join) #=>["red", "4827", "spoon", "jimmy john"]
p s.unpack(lens.map(&"A%d".method(:%)).join) #=> ["red", "4827", "spoon", "jimmy john"]