Intersecting Arrays in Ruby

Just found a slightly satisfying approach to checking the contents of an array in ruby.

I like using Array#include? to figure out whether or not my given array has a certain entry. Unfortunately, if you want to check if an array has a set of possible values, such as, does it contain :a or :b , you can’t just pass an array of those values. Let me show you what I mean:

  food = [:milk, :bread, :butter]
  food1 = [[:milk, :bread], :butter]
  expected = [:milk, :bread]
  food.include?(:milk) # => true
  food.include?(expected) # => false
  food1.include?(expected) # => true

In other words, include? is very specific about the way it does the matching. But what if I want food.include?(expected) to tell me if food has any of expected ‘s values? Enter Array#& . It doesn’t make include? do anything different, but does give us a simple way to get this newer behavior:

  food = [:milk, :bread, :butter]
  expected = [:milk, :bread]
  (food & expected).size > 0 # => true

Array#& gets the intersection of two arrays (the values that are present in both) and returns a new array containing only those values. You could add this to any Array instance by simply defining your own include_any? method:

  # myapp/lib/ext/array.rb

  class Array
    def include_any? values
      (self & values).size > 0
    end

    def include_all? values
      (self & values).size == values.size
    end
  end

  [:milk, :bread, :butter].include_any?([:milk, :butter]) # => true
  [:milk, :bread, :butter].include_all?([:milk, :butter]) # => false
  [:milk, :bread, :butter].include_all?([:milk, :butter, :bread]) # => true

I cheated and gave you an include_all? method also, which just ensures that all of the expected values are present.

I could’ve used Enumerable#any? but then we’d have to use a block and still use Array#include? . This way, we’re golden.

What cool things have you done with ruby today?