How to return a part of an array in Ruby?

Question

Yes, Ruby has very similar array-slicing syntax to Python. Here is the ri documentation for the array index method:

--------------------------------------------------------------- Array#[]
     array[index]                -> obj      or nil
     array[start, length]        -> an_array or nil
     array[range]                -> an_array or nil
     array.slice(index)          -> obj      or nil
     array.slice(start, length)  -> an_array or nil
     array.slice(range)          -> an_array or nil
------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Element Reference---Returns the element at index, or returns a 
     subarray starting at start and continuing for length elements, or 
     returns a subarray specified by range. Negative indices count 
     backward from the end of the array (-1 is the last element). 
     Returns nil if the index (or starting index) are out of range.

        a = [ "a", "b", "c", "d", "e" ]
        a[2] +  a[0] + a[1]    #=> "cab"
        a[6]                   #=> nil
        a[1, 2]                #=> [ "b", "c" ]
        a[1..3]                #=> [ "b", "c", "d" ]
        a[4..7]                #=> [ "e" ]
        a[6..10]               #=> nil
        a[-3, 3]               #=> [ "c", "d", "e" ]
        # special cases
        a[5]                   #=> nil
        a[6, 1]                #=> nil
        a[5, 1]                #=> []
        a[5..10]               #=> []

If you want to split/cut the array on an index i,

arr = arr.drop(i)

> arr = [1,2,3,4,5]
 => [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] 
> arr.drop(2)
 => [3, 4, 5] 

You can use slice() for this:

>> foo = [1,2,3,4,5,6]
=> [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
>> bar = [10,20,30,40,50,60]
=> [10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60]
>> half = foo.length / 2
=> 3
>> foobar = foo.slice(0, half) + bar.slice(half, foo.length)
=> [1, 2, 3, 40, 50, 60]

By the way, to the best of my knowledge, Python "lists" are just efficiently implemented dynamically growing arrays. Insertion at the beginning is in O(n), insertion at the end is amortized O(1), random access is O(1).

Ruby 2.6 Beginless/Endless Ranges

(..1)
# or
(...1)

(1..)
# or
(1...)

[1,2,3,4,5,6][..3]
=> [1, 2, 3, 4]

[1,2,3,4,5,6][...3]
 => [1, 2, 3]

ROLES = %w[superadmin manager admin contact user]
ROLES[ROLES.index('admin')..]
=> ["admin", "contact", "user"]

another way is to use the range method

foo = [1,2,3,4,5,6]
bar = [10,20,30,40,50,60]
a = foo[0...3]
b = bar[3...6]

print a + b 
=> [1, 2, 3, 40, 50 , 60]

I like ranges for this:

def first_half(list)
  list[0...(list.length / 2)]
end

def last_half(list)
  list[(list.length / 2)..list.length]
end

However, be very careful about whether the endpoint is included in your range. This becomes critical on an odd-length list where you need to choose where you're going to break the middle. Otherwise you'll end up double-counting the middle element.

The above example will consistently put the middle element in the last half.