How to declare an empty 2-dimensional array in ruby?

Question

can somebody pls tell me how to declare a new instance of 2-dimensional array? Most of the languages uses something like

array = Array.new[2][2]

I don't know how to do it in Ruby.

Pls help...

Answer 1

You can do:

width = 2
height = 3
Array.new(height){Array.new(width)} #=> [[nil, nil], [nil, nil], [nil, nil]] 

Answer 2

To declare 2d array in ruby, Use following syntax with initialization value

row, col, default_value = 5, 4, 0
arr_2d = Array.new(row){Array.new(col,default_value)}
=> [[0, 0, 0, 0], 
    [0, 0, 0, 0], 
    [0, 0, 0, 0], 
    [0, 0, 0, 0], 
    [0, 0, 0, 0]]

We can do any level of nesting, like for 3d array(5 x 4 x 2): you can pass block to initialize array in most inner Array

z = 2
arr_3d = Array.new(row){Array.new(col){Array.new(z){|index| index}}}
=> [[[0, 1], [0, 1], [0, 1], [0, 1]], 
    [[0, 1], [0, 1], [0, 1], [0, 1]], 
    [[0, 1], [0, 1], [0, 1], [0, 1]], 
    [[0, 1], [0, 1], [0, 1], [0, 1]], 
    [[0, 1], [0, 1], [0, 1], [0, 1]]]

Now, you can access its element using [] operator like arr_2d[0][1], actually its array of arrays