Ruby: method to print and neat an array

Question

I am not sure if this question is too silly but I haven't found a way to do it.

Usually to puts an array in a loop I do this

current_humans = [.....] current_humans.each do |characteristic|   puts characteristic end 

However if I have this:

class Human   attr_accessor:name,:country,:sex   @@current_humans = []    def self.current_humans     @@current_humans   end    def self.print         #@@current_humans.each do |characteristic|     #  puts characteristic     #end     return @@current_humans.to_s       end    def initialize(name='',country='',sex='')     @name    = name     @country = country     @sex     = sex      @@current_humans << self #everytime it is save or initialize it save all the data into an array     puts "A new human has been instantiated"   end        end  jhon = Human.new('Jhon','American','M') mary = Human.new('Mary','German','F') puts Human.print 

It doesn't work.

Of course I can use something like this

puts Human.current_humans.inspect 

but I want to learn other alternatives!

Answer 1

You can use the method p. Using p is actually equivalent of using puts + inspect on an object.

humans = %w( foo bar baz )  p humans # => ["foo", "bar", "baz"]  puts humans.inspect # => ["foo", "bar", "baz"] 

But keep in mind p is more a debugging tool, it should not be used for printing records in the normal workflow.

There is also pp (pretty print), but you need to require it first.

require 'pp'  pp %w( foo bar baz ) 

pp works better with complex objects.

---

As a side note, don't use explicit return

def self.print     return @@current_humans.to_s     end 

should be

def self.print     @@current_humans.to_s     end 

And use 2-chars indentation, not 4.