Question

searchterms.rb

search = '1|butter+salted|Butter salt|Butter|Túrós csusza|Margarine|Potato           2|butter+whipped|Shea butter|Butter|Pastry bag|Cream bun|Butter cream           3|butter+oil+anhydrous|Ultralight backpacking|Odell\'s|Ghee|Fragrance extraction|Perfume           4|cheese+blue|Blue cheese|Shropshire Blue cheese|Buxton Blue cheese|Danish Blue cheese|Blue cheese dressing           5|cheese+brick|Brick cheese|Oaxaca cheese|List of American cheeses|Herve cheese|Trappista cheese  . . .  search = search.split('\n') catalog = String.new a = 0; until a == search.length    line = search[a].split('|')   id   = line.first   term = line[1]    puts id + '|' + term   puts '        1 #{line[2].nil? ? '' : line[2]}'   puts '        2 #{line[3].nil? ? '' : line[3]}'   puts '        3 #{line[4].nil? ? '' : line[4]}'   puts '        4 #{line[5].nil? ? '' : line[5]}'   puts '        5 #{line[6].nil? ? '' : line[6]}'    choice = gets    choice = choice.chomp.to_i    catalog = '#{id}|#{term}|#{line[choice]}\n'    %x[echo '#{catalog}' >> updated_terms]    a += 1 end  $ ruby searchterms.rb 1|butter+salted         1 Butter salt         2 Butter         3 Túrós csusza         4 Margarine         5 Potato 2 # I don't know why this figure is printed.  2 $ 

How do I get this working? I have to select the most relevant term for each food item.

I also get a strange error on setting a to any other number to start:

  searchterms.rb:7525:             line = search[a].split('|')    private method `split' called for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError) 

Answer 1

You need to use

search.split('\n') 

instead of

search.split('\n') 

The single quotes prevent it from being interpreted as an actual newline. This is why the loop terminates — the length of the array, not being split at all, is 1. At the end of your first iteration, a (which is 0), becomes a += 1, which is the length of the unsplit array.