learn-co-curriculum / pfwtfp-practice-with-array-characters-lab

Practice with Arrays of Strings

Introduction

In this lab, we'll solidify our understanding of how array characters work and how to perform various operations on them.

Learning Goals

• Perform operations on arrays

Perform Operations on Arrays

Your task is to write the implementations for a set of methods. Each method takes in an array of strings and manipulate those strings in a specific way. These methods should work with any array of strings.

1. sentence_to_array(string) - Takes in a string. Returns an array of individual words from the string, separated using whitespace.

sentence_to_array('Earth has not anything to show more fair')
# => ['Earth', 'has', 'not', 'anything', 'to', 'show', 'more', 'fair']

2. clean_up_elements(array) - Takes in an array. Returns a new array of strings in which all leading and trailing whitespaces have been removed and some special characters replaced with whitespaces. Removes any nil or empty string values in the array

clean_up_elements([' hello', nil, '  and ', '', 'goodbye ', nil])
# => ['hello', 'and', 'goodbye']

3. array_to_sentence(array) - Takes in an array. Returns an string of joined array values. The first word should be capitalized.

array_to_sentence('and', 'all', 'that', 'mighty', 'heart', 'is', 'lying', 'still')
# => 'And all that mighty heart is lying still'

4. capitalize_all_elements(array) - Takes in an array. Returns a new array in which the first character of every string capitalized

capitalize_all_elements(['see', 'spot', 'run'])
# => ['See', 'Spot', 'Run']

5. substitute_strings(array, pattern, replacement) - Takes in an array, a pattern, and replacement. Returns a new array in which all strings that match the pattern have been substituted by the replacement. Substitutions should be case sensitive.

substitute_strings(['go', 'dog', 'Go'], 'go', 'yo')
# => ['yo', 'dog', 'Go']

6. title_format(array) - Takes in an array. Returns a new array in which all strings have been formatted as titles. The first letter of the first word is always capitalized. The first letter of every other word in a string is also capitalized, with the exception of articles, conjunctions and prepositions. Arrays of exceptions are provided in lib/array_practice.rb

title_format(['for whom the bell tolls', 'the rime of the ancient mariner', 'composed upon westminster bridge',])
# => ['For Whom the Bell Tolls', 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', 'Composed Upon Westminster Bridge']

Write implementations for each method in lib/array_practice.rb. Run learn to see your progress.

Conclusion

In web development, we often need to our programs to take in and interpret user input. Users, however, are human, and prone to typos and unique formatting.

Arrays can be a handy tool when handling text and strings. They give us the ability to manipulate and change strings in bulk. With them, we can take human language and convert it something a computer can use. Or alternatively, take something a computer generated and make it more human friendly.

Resources

• Arrays
• Strings

pfwtfp-practice-with-array-characters-lab's Issues

Specs failing

The final 2 specs in this exercise is failing the asked requirements as it is copied code from the previous exercise.