Rubyize This: Live in Vancouver. Refactoring #2

published 2008-01-27

Here's the second refactoring from the Rubyize This workshop. See the first refactoring for an explanation of what's going on and why this code is so darn ugly! Don't forget to check out the third and final refactoring

This script loads the file full of random numbers from the first refactoring and makes a beautiful ascii-art histogram from it.

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

require 'pp'

BIG_NUMBER = 32768

# Get data from a file, turn it in to a float, and find the max
data = File.readlines('random.txt')
max = -BIG_NUMBER
for n in (0 ... data.length)
    data[n] = data[n].chomp.to_f
    if data[n] > max
        max = data[n].to_i + 1 # max is ceil(max(data[n]))
    end
end

# Create the empty histogram
histogram = []
for n in (0 .. max)
    histogram.push(0)
end

# Fill the histogram
for n in (0 ... data.length)
    histogram[data[n].to_i] += 1
end

# Print the histogram
pp histogram
puts
for n in (0 .. max)
    puts "*" * histogram[n]
end

Here's a very concise one-liner from the crowd:

0.upto((data=File.readlines('random.txt').collect {|e|
e.chomp!.to_f}).max.to_i) {|i| puts i.to_s + " " + data.select{|a|
a==i}.size.to_s}

Here's Owen's refactoring:

require 'pp'
histogram = []
File.readlines('random.txt').each do |value|
    i = value.chomp.to_i
    histogram[i] ||= 0
    histogram[i] += 1
end

# Print the histogram
pp histogram
puts
histogram.each { | v | puts "*" * v }

Here's Sam Livingstone Gray's refactoring

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

require 'pp'

# Get data from a file, turn it in to a float, and find the max

module Enumerable
    def value_counts
        h = Hash.new(0)
        each { |e| h[e] += 1 }
        h
    end
end

lines = File.readlines('random.txt')
histogram = lines.map { |line| line.chomp.to_i }.value_counts

# Print the histogram
pp histogram
puts
histogram.keys.sort.each { |n| puts '*' * histogram[n] }

I really like this one. Sam created a simple extension to Enumerable that I can see using over and over again.

Here's what I came up with, with some debugging help from the group

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

require 'pp'

data = File.readlines('random.txt').collect {|datum|
datum.chomp.to_f}
max = data.max

histogram = data.inject([0] * (max + 1)) do |histogram, datum|
    histogram[datum.to_i] += 1
    histogram
end

pp histogram
histogram.each do |bucket|
    puts "*" * bucket
end