Module: Abbrev

Calculate the set of unique abbreviations for a given set of strings.

  require 'abbrev'
  require 'pp'

  pp Abbrev::abbrev(['ruby', 'rules']).sort

Generates:

  [["rub", "ruby"],
   ["ruby", "ruby"],
   ["rul", "rules"],
   ["rule", "rules"],
   ["rules", "rules"]]

Also adds an abbrev method to class Array.

Methods

abbrev

Public Instance methods

abbrev(words, pattern = nil)

Given a set of strings, calculate the set of unambiguous abbreviations for those strings, and return a hash where the keys are all the possible abbreviations and the values are the full strings. Thus, given input of "car" and "cone", the keys pointing to "car" would be "ca" and "car", while those pointing to "cone" would be "co", "con", and "cone".

The optional pattern parameter is a pattern or a string. Only those input strings matching the pattern, or begging the string, are considered for inclusion in the output hash

[Source]

# File abbrev.rb, line 44
  def abbrev(words, pattern = nil)
    table = {}
    seen = Hash.new(0)

    if pattern.is_a?(String)
      pattern = /^#{Regexp.quote(pattern)}/     # regard as a prefix
    end

    words.each do |word|
      next if (abbrev = word).empty?
      while (len = abbrev.rindex(/[\w\W]\z/)) > 0
        abbrev = word[0,len]

        next if pattern && pattern !~ abbrev

        case seen[abbrev] += 1
        when 1
          table[abbrev] = word
        when 2
          table.delete(abbrev)
        else
          break
        end
      end
    end

    words.each do |word|
      next if pattern && pattern !~ word

      table[word] = word
    end

    table
  end

ruby-doc.org is hosted and run by James Britt and Happy Camper Studios, a Ruby application development company in Phoenix, Arizona. Ruby-doc.org was created in 2002 to promote the Ruby language and to help other Ruby hackers.

Documentation content on ruby-doc.org is provided by remarkable members of the Ruby community.

For more information on the Ruby programming language, visit ruby-lang.org.

Want to help improve Ruby's API docs? See Ruby Documentation Guidelines.