Introduction

At the beginning of this section, you learned how to create and manipulate numbers and strings and how to assign them to variables. In real-world development, where you’ll be working with dozens (and even hundreds!) of variables, working with numbers and strings individually is tedious, if not impossible.

One way Ruby allows you to represent a collection of data is with arrays, which you can think of as ordered lists. Rather than working with individual variables, numbers, or strings, an array allows you to create and manipulate an ordered and indexed collection of these data. The individual variables, numbers, or strings within an array are known as elements. An array can contain any combination of variables, numbers, strings, or other Ruby objects (including other arrays), although it is advisable to keep similar data types in any one array.

Lesson overview

This section contains a general overview of topics that you will learn in this lesson.

• Describe what an array is, and explain why it’s useful.
• Describe two different ways of creating a new array.
• Explain how to access array elements using different methods.
• Explain three different ways to add data to an array.
• Explain how to remove elements from an array.

Creating arrays

Here are two basic arrays:

num_array = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
str_array = ["This", "is", "a", "small", "array"]

Both arrays have five elements separated by commas. The first array contains integers, while the second array contains strings.

Arrays are commonly created with an array literal, which is a special syntax used to create instances of an array object. To create a new array using an array literal, use square brackets ([]).

An array can also be created by calling the Array.new method. When you call this method, you can also include up to 2 optional arguments (initial size and default value):

Array.new               #=> []
Array.new(3)            #=> [nil, nil, nil]
Array.new(3, 7)         #=> [7, 7, 7]
Array.new(3, true)      #=> [true, true, true]

Accessing elements

Every element in an array has an index, which is a numerical representation of the element’s position in the array. Like most other programming languages, Ruby arrays use zero-based indexing, which means that the index of the first element is 0, the index of the second element is 1, and so on. Accessing a specific element within an array is done by calling my_array[x], where x is the index of the element you want. Calling an invalid position will result in nil. Ruby also allows the use of negative indices, which return elements starting from the end of an array, starting at [-1].

str_array = ["This", "is", "a", "small", "array"]

str_array[0]            #=> "This"
str_array[1]            #=> "is"
str_array[4]            #=> "array"
str_array[-1]           #=> "array"
str_array[-2]           #=> "small"

Finally, Ruby provides the #first and #last array methods, which should be self-explanatory. In addition, these methods can take an integer argument, e.g., my_array.first(n) or my_array.last(n), which will return a new array that contains the first or last n elements of my_array, respectively.

str_array = ["This", "is", "a", "small", "array"]

str_array.first         #=> "This"
str_array.first(2)      #=> ["This", "is"]
str_array.last(2)       #=> ["small", "array"]

Adding and removing elements

Adding an element to an existing array is done by using the #push method or the shovel operator <<. Both methods will add elements to the end of an array and return that array with the new elements. The #pop method will remove the element at the end of an array and return the element that was removed.

num_array = [1, 2]

num_array.push(3, 4)      #=> [1, 2, 3, 4]
num_array << 5            #=> [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
num_array.pop             #=> 5
num_array                 #=> [1, 2, 3, 4]

The methods #shift and #unshift are used to add and remove elements at the beginning of an array. The #unshift method adds elements to the beginning of an array and returns that array (much like #push). The #shift method removes the first element of an array and returns that element (much like #pop).

num_array = [2, 3, 4]

num_array.unshift(1)      #=> [1, 2, 3, 4]
num_array.shift           #=> 1
num_array                 #=> [2, 3, 4]

It’s also useful to know that both #pop and #shift can take integer arguments:

num_array = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

num_array.pop(3)          #=> [4, 5, 6]
num_array.shift(2)        #=> [1, 2]
num_array                 #=> [3]

Adding and subtracting arrays

What do you think will be the outcome of [1, 2, 3] + [3, 4, 5]?

If you guessed [1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5], congratulations! Adding two arrays will return a new array built by concatenating them, similar to string concatenation. The concat method works the same way.

a = [1, 2, 3]
b = [3, 4, 5]

a + b         #=> [1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5]
a.concat(b)   #=> [1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5]

To find the difference between two arrays, you can subtract them using -. This method returns a copy of the first array, removing any elements that appear in the second array.

[1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4] - [1, 4]  #=> [2, 2, 3]

Basic methods

Ruby gives you many methods to manipulate arrays and their contents (over 150!), many of which are beyond the scope of this lesson. To learn about other methods, go to the official documentation (docs.ruby-lang.org) and browse the Array page, where you can find methods listed alphabetically (by scrolling the left sidebar) or summarized and grouped by purpose (by reading under “What’s Here”).

Calling the #methods method on an array will also yield a long list of the available methods.

num_array.methods       #=> A very long list of methods

Here is a brief look at some other common array methods you might run into:

[].empty?               #=> true
[[]].empty?             #=> false
[1, 2].empty?           #=> false

[1, 2, 3].length        #=> 3

[1, 2, 3].reverse       #=> [3, 2, 1]

[1, 2, 3].include?(3)   #=> true
[1, 2, 3].include?("3") #=> false

[1, 2, 3].join          #=> "123"
[1, 2, 3].join("-")     #=> "1-2-3"

Assignment

Knowledge check

This section contains questions for you to check your understanding of this lesson. If you’re having trouble answering the questions below on your own, review the material above to find the answer.

• What is an array and why is it useful?
• What are two ways to create a new empty array?
• What are some ways of accessing the elements in an array?
• What are 3 ways to add data to an array?
• How can you remove elements from an array?

Additional resources

This section contains helpful links to related content. It isn’t required, so consider it supplemental.

• Read the official documentation on class Array.
• If you need a different take on arrays, read through this article by zetcode.
• Arrays also allow for set operations, which you can read about here. Don’t worry about the simple bookshelf example. Classes and Rails will be covered later!