Is there a radix function in ruby?

Question

While reading through another question here, on creating a URL shortening service, it was suggested to take the ID of the row, and then convert it to base 62 (0 to 9, a to z, and A to Z). Is there a standard function to accomplish this in Ruby?

Edit: Not sure if I was clear enough.

Something like this: 123456.radix(62)

should give the base 62 of 123456.

I'm thinking of writing one, if it isn't already there.

Answer 1

The to_s method in Ruby integer classes has an optional parameter specifying the base, something like:

123456.to_s(16)

However, it only accepts values from 2 to 36 as the radix.

This snippet might be a good starting place if you want to write your own encoder. There's also a base62 Ruby Gem that adds methods for encoding and decoding in base62.

Answer 2

Since I recently needed to use radixes in Ruby, and since this is the first result for 'Ruby radix', I thought I would point out that there is now a gem for working with radixes. Here is how to code the OP's example using it:¹

require 'radix'
SIXTYTWO = ('0'..'9').to_a + ('a'..'z').to_a + ('A'..'Z').to_a
123456.b(62).to_s(SIXTYTWO)

¹ The SIXTYTWO array is needed because the gem doesn't make any assumptions about which characters to use to encode the result.