#350 The Ruby Way

Book notes - The Ruby Way, by Hal Fulton. First published January 1, 2001.

Notes

The Ruby Way was one of the seminal books that really drew me into ruby back in the day. The latest edition was published in 2015.

1 Ruby in Review
- 1.1 An Introduction to Object Orientation
- 1.1.1 What Is an Object?
- 1.1.2 Inheritance
- 1.1.3 Polymorphism
- 1.1.4 A Few More Terms
1.2 Basic Ruby Syntax and Semantics
- 1.2.1 Keywords and Identifiers
- 1.2.2 Comments and Embedded Documentation
- 1.2.3 Constants, Variables, and Types
- 1.2.4 Operators and Precedence
- 1.2.5 A Sample Program
- 1.2.6 Looping and Branching
- 1.2.7 Exceptions
1.3 OOP in Ruby
- 1.3.1 Objects
- 1.3.2 Built-in Classes
- 1.3.3 Modules and Mixins
- 1.3.4 Creating Classes
- 1.3.5 Methods and Attributes
1.4 Dynamic Aspects of Ruby
- 1.4.1 Coding at Runtime
- 1.4.2 Reflection
- 1.4.3 Missing Methods
- 1.4.4 Garbage Collection
1.5 Training Your Intuition: Things to Remember
- 1.5.1 Syntax Issues
- 1.5.2 Perspectives in Programming
- 1.5.3 Ruby’s case Statement
- 1.5.4 Rubyisms and Idioms
- 1.5.5 Expression Orientation and Other Miscellaneous Issues
1.6 Ruby Jargon and Slang
1.7 Conclusion
2 Working with Strings
2.1 Representing Ordinary Strings
2.2 Representing Strings with Alternate Notations
2.3 Using Here-Documents
2.4 Finding the Length of a String
2.5 Processing a Line at a Time
2.6 Processing a Character or Byte at a Time
2.7 Performing Specialized String Comparisons
2.8 Tokenizing a String
2.9 Formatting a String
2.10 Using Strings as IO Objects
2.11 Controlling Uppercase and Lowercase
2.12 Accessing and Assigning Substrings
2.13 Substituting in Strings
2.14 Searching a String
2.15 Converting Between Characters and ASCII Codes
2.16 Implicit and Explicit Conversion
2.17 Appending an Item onto a String
2.18 Removing Trailing Newlines and Other Characters
2.19 Trimming Whitespace from a String
2.20 Repeating Strings
2.21 Embedding Expressions within Strings
2.22 Delayed Interpolation of Strings
2.23 Parsing Comma-Separated Data
2.24 Converting Strings to Numbers (Decimal and Otherwise)
2.25 Encoding and Decoding rot13 Text
2.26 Encrypting Strings
2.27 Compressing Strings
2.28 Counting Characters in Strings
2.29 Reversing a String
2.30 Removing Duplicate Characters
2.31 Removing Specific Characters
2.32 Printing Special Characters
2.33 Generating Successive Strings
2.34 Calculating a 32-Bit CRC
2.35 Calculating the SHA-256 Hash of a String
2.36 Calculating the Levenshtein Distance Between Two Strings
2.37 Encoding and Decoding Base64 Strings
2.38 Expanding and Compressing Tab Characters
2.39 Wrapping Lines of Text
2.40 Conclusion
3 Working with Regular Expressions
3.1 Regular Expression Syntax
3.2 Compiling Regular Expressions
3.3 Escaping Special Characters
3.4 Using Anchors
3.5 Using Quantifiers
3.6 Positive and Negative Lookahead
3.7 Positive and Negative Lookbehind
3.8 Accessing Backreferences
3.9 Named Matches
3.10 Using Character Classes
3.11 Extended Regular Expressions
3.12 Matching a Newline with a Dot
3.13 Using Embedded Options
3.14 Using Embedded Subexpressions
3.14.1 Recursion in Regular Expressions
3.15 A Few Sample Regular Expressions
3.15.1 Matching an IP Address
3.15.2 Matching a Keyword-Value Pair
3.15.3 Matching Roman Numerals
3.15.4 Matching Numeric Constants
3.15.5 Matching a Date/Time String
3.15.6 Detecting Doubled Words in Text
3.15.7 Matching All-Caps Words
3.15.8 Matching Version Numbers
3.15.9 A Few Other Patterns
3.16 Conclusion
4 Internationalization in Ruby
4.1 Background and Terminology
4.2 Working with Character Encodings
4.2.1 Normalization
4.2.2 Encoding Conversions
4.2.3 Transliteration
4.2.4 Collation
4.3 Translations
4.3.1 Defaults
4.3.2 Namespaces
4.3.3 Interpolation
4.3.4 Pluralization
4.4 Localized Formatting
4.4.1 Dates and Times
4.4.2 Numbers
4.4.3 Currencies
4.5 Conclusion
5 Performing Numerical Calculations
5.1 Representing Numbers in Ruby
5.2 Basic Operations on Numbers
5.3 Rounding Floating Point Values
5.4 Comparing Floating Point Numbers
5.5 Formatting Numbers for Output
5.6 Formatting Numbers with Commas
5.7 Working with Very Large Integers
5.8 Using BigDecimal
5.9 Working with Rational Values
5.10 Matrix Manipulation
5.11 Working with Complex Numbers
5.12 Using mathn
5.13 Finding Prime Factorization, GCD, and LCM
5.14 Working with Prime Numbers
5.15 Implicit and Explicit Numeric Conversion
5.16 Coercing Numeric Values
5.17 Performing Bit-Level Operations on Numbers
5.18 Performing Base Conversions
5.19 Finding Cube Roots, Fourth Roots, and So On
5.20 Determining the Architecture’s Byte Order
5.21 Numerical Computation of a Definite Integral
5.22 Trigonometry in Degrees, Radians, and Grads
5.23 Finding Logarithms with Arbitrary Bases
5.24 Finding the Mean, Median, and Mode of a Data Set
5.25 Variance and Standard Deviation
5.26 Finding a Correlation Coefficient
5.27 Generating Random Numbers
5.28 Caching Functions with Memoization
5.29 Conclusion
6 Symbols and Ranges
6.1 Symbols
- 6.1.1 Symbols as Enumerations
- 6.1.2 Symbols as Metavalues
- 6.1.3 Symbols, Variables, and Methods
- 6.1.4 Converting to/from Symbols
6.2 Ranges
- 6.2.1 Open and Closed Ranges
- 6.2.2 Finding Endpoints
- 6.2.3 Iterating Over Ranges
- 6.2.4 Testing Range Membership
- 6.2.5 Converting to Arrays
- 6.2.6 Backward Ranges
- 6.2.7 The Flip-Flop Operator
- 6.2.8 Custom Ranges
6.3 Conclusion
7 Working with Times and Dates
7.1 Determining the Current Time
7.2 Working with Specific Times (Post-Epoch)
7.3 Determining the Day of the Week
7.4 Determining the Date of Easter
7.5 Finding the Nth Weekday in a Month
7.6 Converting Between Seconds and Larger Units
7.7 Converting to and from the Epoch
7.8 Working with Leap Seconds: Don’t!
7.9 Finding the Day of the Year
7.10 Validating a Date or Time
7.11 Finding the Week of the Year
7.12 Detecting Leap Years
7.13 Obtaining the Time Zone
7.14 Working with Hours and Minutes Only
7.15 Comparing Time Values
7.16 Adding Intervals to Time Values
7.17 Computing the Difference in Two Time Values
7.18 Working with Specific Dates (Pre-Epoch)
7.19 Time, Date, and DateTime
7.20 Parsing a Date or Time String
7.21 Formatting and Printing Time Values
7.22 Time Zone Conversions
7.23 Determining the Number of Days in a Month
7.24 Dividing a Month into Weeks
7.25 Conclusion
8 Arrays, Hashes, and Other Enumerables
8.1 Working with Arrays
- 8.1.1 Creating and Initializing an Array
- 8.1.2 Accessing and Assigning Array Elements
- 8.1.3 Finding an Array’s Size
- 8.1.4 Comparing Arrays
- 8.1.5 Sorting an Array
- 8.1.6 Selecting from an Array by Criteria
- 8.1.7 Using Specialized Indexing Functions
- 8.1.8 Implementing a Sparse Matrix
- 8.1.9 Using Arrays as Mathematical Sets
- 8.1.10 Randomizing an Array
- 8.1.11 Using Multidimensional Arrays
- 8.1.12 Finding Elements in One Array But Not Another
- 8.1.13 Transforming or Mapping Arrays
- 8.1.14 Removing nil Values from an Array
- 8.1.15 Removing Specific Array Elements
- 8.1.16 Concatenating and Appending onto Arrays
- 8.1.17 Using an Array as a Stack or Queue
- 8.1.18 Iterating over an Array
- 8.1.19 Interposing Delimiters to Form a String
- 8.1.20 Reversing an Array
- 8.1.21 Removing Duplicate Elements from an Array
- 8.1.22 Interleaving Arrays
- 8.1.23 Counting Frequency of Values in an Array
- 8.1.24 Inverting an Array to Form a Hash
- 8.1.25 Synchronized Sorting of Multiple Arrays
- 8.1.26 Establishing a Default Value for New Array Elements
8.2 Working with Hashes
- 8.2.1 Creating a New Hash
- 8.2.2 Specifying a Default Value for a Hash
- 8.2.3 Accessing and Adding Key-Value Pairs
- 8.2.4 Deleting Key-Value Pairs
- 8.2.5 Iterating Over a Hash
- 8.2.6 Inverting a Hash
- 8.2.7 Detecting Keys and Values in a Hash
- 8.2.8 Extracting Hashes into Arrays
- 8.2.9 Selecting Key-Value Pairs by Criteria
- 8.2.10 Sorting a Hash
- 8.2.11 Merging Two Hashes
- 8.2.12 Creating a Hash from an Array
- 8.2.13 Finding Difference or Intersection of Hash Keys
- 8.2.14 Using a Hash as a Sparse Matrix
- 8.2.15 Implementing a Hash with Duplicate Keys
- 8.2.16 Other Hash Operations
8.3 Enumerables in General
- 8.3.1 The inject Method
- 8.3.2 Using Quantifiers
- 8.3.3 The partition Method
- 8.3.4 Iterating by Groups
- 8.3.5 Converting to Arrays or Sets
- 8.3.6 Using Enumerator Objects
8.4 More on Enumerables
- 8.4.1 Searching and Selecting
- 8.4.2 Counting and Comparing
- 8.4.3 Iterating
- 8.4.4 Extracting and Converting
- 8.4.5 Lazy Enumerators
8.5 Conclusion
9 More Advanced Data Structures
9.1 Working with Sets
- 9.1.1 Simple Set Operations
- 9.1.2 More Advanced Set Operations
9.2 Working with Stacks and Queues
- 9.2.1 Implementing a Stricter Stack
- 9.2.2 Detecting Unbalanced Punctuation in Expressions
- 9.2.3 Understanding Stacks and Recursion
- 9.2.4 Implementing a Stricter Queue
9.3 Working with Trees
- 9.3.1 Implementing a Binary Tree
- 9.3.2 Sorting Using a Binary Tree
- 9.3.3 Using a Binary Tree as a Lookup Table
- 9.3.4 Converting a Tree to a String or Array
9.4 Working with Graphs
- 9.4.1 Implementing a Graph as an Adjacency Matrix
- 9.4.2 Determining Whether a Graph Is Fully Connected
- 9.4.3 Determining Whether a Graph Has an Euler Circuit
- 9.4.4 Determining Whether a Graph Has an Euler Path
- 9.4.5 Graph Tools in Ruby
9.5 Conclusion
10 I/O and Data Storage
10.1 Working with Files and Directories
- 10.1.1 Opening and Closing Files
- 10.1.2 Updating a File
- 10.1.3 Appending to a File
- 10.1.4 Random Access to Files
- 10.1.5 Working with Binary Files
- 10.1.6 Locking Files
- 10.1.7 Performing Simple I/O
- 10.1.8 Performing Buffered and Unbuffered I/O
- 10.1.9 Manipulating File Ownership and Permissions
- 10.1.10 Retrieving and Setting Timestamp Information
- 10.1.11 Checking File Existence and Size
- 10.1.12 Checking Special File Characteristics
- 10.1.13 Working with Pipes
- 10.1.14 Performing Special I/O Operations
- 10.1.15 Using Nonblocking I/O
- 10.1.16 Using readpartial
- 10.1.17 Manipulating Pathnames
- 10.1.18 Using the Pathname Class
- 10.1.19 Command-Level File Manipulation
- 10.1.20 Grabbing Characters from the Keyboard
- 10.1.21 Reading an Entire File into Memory
- 10.1.22 Iterating Over a File by Lines
- 10.1.23 Iterating Over a File by Byte or Character
- 10.1.24 Treating a String As a File
- 10.1.25 Copying a Stream
- 10.1.26 Working with Character Encodings
- 10.1.27 Reading Data Embedded in a Program
- 10.1.28 Reading Program Source
- 10.1.29 Working with Temporary Files
- 10.1.30 Changing and Setting the Current Directory
- 10.1.31 Changing the Current Root
- 10.1.32 Iterating Over Directory Entries
- 10.1.33 Getting a List of Directory Entries
- 10.1.34 Creating a Chain of Directories
- 10.1.35 Deleting a Directory Recursively
- 10.1.36 Finding Files and Directories
10.2 Higher-Level Data Access
- 10.2.1 Simple Marshaling
- 10.2.2 “Deep Copying” with Marshal
- 10.2.3 More Complex Marshaling
- 10.2.4 Marshaling with YAML
- 10.2.5 Persisting Data with JSON
- 10.2.6 Working with CSV Data
- 10.2.7 SQLite3 for SQL Data Storage
10.3 Connecting to External Data Stores
- 10.3.1 Connecting to MySQL Databases
- 10.3.2 Connecting to PostgreSQL Databases
- 10.3.3 Object-Relational Mappers (ORMs)
- 10.3.4 Connecting to Redis Data Stores
10.4 Conclusion
11 OOP and Dynamic Features in Ruby
11.1 Everyday OOP Tasks
- 11.1.1 Using Multiple Constructors
- 11.1.2 Creating Instance Attributes
- 11.1.3 Using More Elaborate Constructors
- 11.1.4 Creating Class-Level Attributes and Methods
- 11.1.5 Inheriting from a Superclass
- 11.1.6 Testing Classes of Objects
- 11.1.7 Testing Equality of Objects
- 11.1.8 Controlling Access to Methods
- 11.1.9 Copying an Object
- 11.1.10 Using initialize_copy
- 11.1.11 Understanding allocate
- 11.1.12 Working with Modules
- 11.1.13 Transforming or Converting Objects
- 11.1.14 Creating Data-Only Classes (Structs)
- 11.1.15 Freezing Objects
- 11.1.16 Using tap in Method Chaining
11.2 More Advanced Techniques
- 11.2.1 Sending an Explicit Message to an Object
- 11.2.2 Specializing an Individual Object
- 11.2.3 Nesting Classes and Modules
- 11.2.4 Creating Parametric Classes
- 11.2.5 Storing Code as Proc Objects
- 11.2.6 Storing Code as Method Objects
- 11.2.7 Using Symbols as Blocks
- 11.2.8 How Module Inclusion Works
- 11.2.9 Detecting Default Parameters
- 11.2.10 Delegating or Forwarding
- 11.2.11 Defining Class-Level Readers and Writers
- 11.2.12 Working in Advanced Programming Disciplines
11.3 Working with Dynamic Features
- 11.3.1 Evaluating Code Dynamically
- 11.3.2 Retrieving a Constant by Name
- 11.3.3 Retrieving a Class by Name
- 11.3.4 Using define_method
- 11.3.5 Obtaining Lists of Defined Entities
- 11.3.6 Removing Definitions
- 11.3.7 Handling References to Nonexistent Constants
- 11.3.8 Handling Calls to Nonexistent Methods
- 11.3.9 Improved Security with taint
- 11.3.10 Defining Finalizers for Objects
11.4 Program Introspection
- 11.4.1 Traversing the Object Space
- 11.4.2 Examining the Call Stack
- 11.4.3 Tracking Changes to a Class or Object Definition
- 11.4.4 Monitoring Program Execution
11.5 Conclusion
12 Graphical Interfaces for Ruby
12.1 Shoes 4
- 12.1.1 Starting Out with Shoes
- 12.1.2 An Interactive Button
- 12.1.3 Text and Input
- 12.1.4 Layout
- 12.1.5 Images and Shapes
- 12.1.6 Events
- 12.1.7 Other Notes
12.2 Ruby/Tk
- 12.2.1 Overview
- 12.2.2 A Simple Windowed Application
- 12.2.3 Working with Buttons
- 12.2.4 Working with Text Fields
- 12.2.5 Working with Other Widgets
- 12.2.6 Other Notes
12.3 Ruby/GTK3
- 12.3.1 Overview
- 12.3.2 A Simple Windowed Application
- 12.3.3 Working with Buttons
- 12.3.4 Working with Text Fields
- 12.3.5 Working with Other Widgets
- 12.3.6 Other Notes
12.4 QtRuby
- 12.4.1 Overview
- 12.4.2 A Simple Windowed Application
- 12.4.3 Working with Buttons
- 12.4.4 Working with Text Fields
- 12.4.5 Working with Other Widgets
- 12.4.6 Other Notes
12.5 Swing
12.6 Other GUI Toolkits
- 12.6.1 UNIX and X11
- 12.6.2 FXRuby (FOX)
- 12.6.3 RubyMotion for iOS and Mac OS X
- 12.6.4 The Windows Win32API
12.7 Conclusion
13 Threads and Concurrency
13.1 Creating and Manipulating Threads
- 13.1.1 Creating Threads
- 13.1.2 Accessing Thread-Local Variables
- 13.1.3 Querying and Changing Thread Status
- 13.1.4 Achieving a Rendezvous (and Capturing a Return Value)
- 13.1.5 Dealing with Exceptions
- 13.1.6 Using a Thread Group
13.2 Synchronizing Threads
- 13.2.1 Performing Simple Synchronization
- 13.2.2 Synchronizing Access with a Mutex
- 13.2.3 Using the Built-in Queue Classes
- 13.2.4 Using Condition Variables
- 13.2.5 Other Synchronization Techniques
- 13.2.6 Setting a Timeout for an Operation
- 13.2.7 Waiting for an Event
- 13.2.8 Collection Searching in Parallel
- 13.2.9 Recursive Deletion in Parallel
13.3 Fibers and Cooperative Multitasking
13.4 Conclusion
14 Scripting and System Administration
14.1 Running External Programs
- 14.1.1 Using system and exec
- 14.1.2 Capturing Command Output
- 14.1.3 Manipulating Processes
- 14.1.4 Manipulating Standard Input and Output
14.2 Command-Line Options and Arguments
- 14.2.1 Working with ARGV
- 14.2.2 Working with ARGF
- 14.2.3 Parsing Command-Line Options
14.3 The Shell Library
- 14.3.1 Using Shell for I/O Redirection
- 14.3.2 Other Notes on Shell
14.4 Accessing Environment Variables
- 14.4.1 Getting and Setting Environment Variables
- 14.4.2 Storing Environment Variables as an Array or Hash
14.5 Working with Files, Directories, and Trees
- 14.5.1 A Few Words on Text Filters
- 14.5.2 Copying a Directory Tree
- 14.5.3 Deleting Files by Age or Other Criteria
- 14.5.4 Determining Free Space on a Disk
14.6 Other Scripting Tasks
- 14.6.1 Distributing Ruby Programs
- 14.6.2 Piping into the Ruby Interpreter
- 14.6.3 Testing Whether a Program Is Running Interactively
- 14.6.4 Determining the Current Platform or Operating System
- 14.6.5 Using the Etc Module
14.7 Conclusion
15 Ruby and Data Formats
15.1 Parsing JSON
- 15.1.1 Navigating JSON Data
- 15.1.2 Handling Non-JSON Data Types
- 15.1.3 Other JSON Libraries
15.2 Parsing XML (and HTML)
- 15.2.1 Document Parsing
- 15.2.2 Stream Parsing
15.3 Working with RSS and Atom
- 15.3.1 Parsing Feeds
- 15.3.2 Generating Feeds
15.4 Manipulating Image Data with RMagick
- 15.4.1 Common Graphics Tasks
- 15.4.2 Special Effects and Transformations
- 15.4.3 The Drawing API
15.5 Creating PDF Documents with Prawn
- 15.5.1 Basic Concepts and Techniques
- 15.5.2 An Example Document
15.6 Conclusion
16 Testing and Debugging
16.1 Testing with RSpec
16.2 Testing with Minitest
16.3 Testing with Cucumber
16.4 Using the byebug Debugger
16.5 Using pry for Debugging
16.6 Measuring Performance
16.7 Pretty-Printing Objects
16.8 Not Covered Here
16.9 Conclusion
17 Packaging and Distributing Code
17.1 Libraries and Rubygems
- 17.1.1 Using Rubygems
- 17.1.2 Creating Gems
17.2 Managing Dependencies with Bundler
- 17.2.1 Semantic Versioning
- 17.2.2 Dependencies from Git
- 17.2.3 Creating Gems with Bundler
- 17.2.4 Private Gems
17.3 Using RDoc
- 17.3.1 Simple Markup
- 17.3.2 Advanced Documentation with Yard
17.4 Conclusion
18 Network Programming
18.1 Network Servers
- 18.1.1 A Simple Server: Time of Day
- 18.1.2 Implementing a Threaded Server
- 18.1.3 Case Study: A Peer-to-Peer Chess Server
18.2 Network Clients
- 18.2.1 Retrieving Truly Random Numbers from the Web
- 18.2.2 Contacting an Official Timeserver
- 18.2.3 Interacting with a POP Server
- 18.2.4 Sending Mail with SMTP
- 18.2.5 Interacting with an IMAP Server
- 18.2.6 Encoding/Decoding Attachments
- 18.2.7 Case Study: A Mail-News Gateway
- 18.2.8 Retrieving a Web Page from a URL
- 18.2.9 Using the Open-URI Library
18.3 Conclusion
19 Ruby and Web Applications
19.1 HTTP Servers
- 19.1.1 A Simple HTTP Server
- 19.1.2 Rack and Web Servers
19.2 Application Frameworks
- 19.2.1 Routing in Sinatra
- 19.2.2 Routing in Rails
- 19.2.3 Parameters in Sinatra
- 19.2.4 Parameters in Rails
19.3 Storing Data
- 19.3.1 Databases
- 19.3.2 Data Stores
19.4 Generating HTML
- 19.4.1 ERB
- 19.4.2 Haml
- 19.4.3 Other Templating Systems
19.5 The Asset Pipeline
- 19.5.1 CSS and Sass
- 19.5.2 JavaScript and CoffeeScript
19.6 Web Services via HTTP
- 19.6.1 JSON for APIs
- 19.6.2 REST (and REST-ish) APIs
19.7 Generating Static Sites
- 19.7.1 Middleman
- 19.7.2 Other Static Site Generators
19.8 Conclusion
20 Distributed Ruby
20.1 An Overview: Using drb
20.2 Case Study: A Stock Ticker Simulation
20.3 Rinda: A Ruby Tuplespace
20.4 Service Discovery with Distributed Ruby
20.5 Conclusion
21 Ruby Development Tools
21.1 Using Rake
21.2 Using irb
21.3 The Basics of pry
21.4 The ri Utility
21.5 Editor Support
21.5.1 Vim
21.5.2 Emacs
21.6 Ruby Version Managers
- 21.6.1 Using rvm
- 21.6.2 Using rbenv
- 21.6.3 Using chruby
21.7 Conclusion
22 The Ruby Community
22.1 Web Resources
22.2 Mailing Lists, Podcasts, and Forums
22.3 Ruby Bug Reports and Feature Requests
22.4 IRC Channels
22.5 Ruby Conferences
22.6 Local Ruby Groups
22.7 Conclusion

Source Code

Download is available from https://www.rubyhacker.com/, also copied here.

Credits and References

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4514.The_Ruby_Way
https://therubyway.io/
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/the-ruby-way/9780132480352/pref06.html
https://www.rubyhacker.com/ - Hal Fulton’s personal page and source code

Project Notes

#350 The Ruby Way

Notes

Contents

Source Code

Credits and References