Ruby: How to group a Ruby array?

Question

I have a Ruby array

> list = Request.find_all_by_artist("Metallica").map(&:song) => ["Nothing else Matters", "Enter sandman", "Enter Sandman", "Master of Puppets", "Master of Puppets", "Master of Puppets"] 

and I want a list with the counts like this:

{"Nothing Else Matters" => 1,  "Enter Sandman" => 2,  "Master of Puppets" => 3} 

So ideally I want a hash that will give me the count and notice how I have Enter Sandman and enter sandman so I need it case insensitive. I am pretty sure I can loop through it but is there a cleaner way?

Answer 1

list.group_by(&:capitalize).map {|k,v| [k, v.length]} #=> [["Master of puppets", 3], ["Enter sandman", 2], ["Nothing else matters", 1]] 

The group by creates a hash from the capitalized version of an album name to an array containing all the strings in list that match it (e.g. "Enter sandman" => ["Enter Sandman", "Enter sandman"]). The map then replaces each array with its length, so you get e.g. ["Enter sandman", 2] for "Enter sandman".

If you need the result to be a hash, you can call to_h on the result or wrap a Hash[ ] around it.

Answer 2

list.inject(Hash.new(0)){|h,k| k.downcase!; h[k.capitalize] += 1;h}