Question

kinda new to Rails.

How would you simplify, beautify this method:

def find_index
   index = 0
   @ipn.each {|p|
       index = 4 if p = "new" #this is just a dummy line
   }
   index
end 

As you can see, it’s ugly. How can I remove the index definition at the top and the index at the bottom to return – The Ruby way?

Answer 1

I think you want this method:
http://ruby-doc.org/core-1.9.3/Enumerable.html#method-i-find_index

def find_index
  @ipn.find_index{|p| p == "new" }
end

I also change the variable name ‘@ipn’ to ‘@ipns’, since it seems to be an enumerable.

And to avoid confusion, I might rename the method to ‘find_ipn_index’, so it looks like this:

def find_ipn_index
  @ipns.find_index{|p| p == "new" }
end

Or, if self.ipns is available, don’t define a new method at all for this, just call:

self.ipns.find_index{|p| p == "new" }