Exploring Iteration
(Page 1 of 4 )
In this final part of a three-part series on code blocks and iteration, you'll learn how to stop an iteration, how to hide setup and clean up, and more. This article is excerpted from chapter eight of the
Ruby Cookbook, written by Lucas Carlson and Leonard Richardson (O'Reilly, 2006; ISBN: 0596523696). Copyright © 2006 O'Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission from the publisher. Available from booksellers or direct from O'Reilly Media.
7.8 Stopping an Iteration
Problem
You want to interrupt an iteration from within the code block you passed into it.
Solution
The simplest way to interrupt execution is to use break. A breakstatement will jump out of the closest enclosing loop defined in the current method:
1.upto(10) do |x|
puts x
break if x == 3
end
# 1
# 2
# 3
Discussion
The break statement is simple but it has several limitations. You can’t use breakwithin a code block defined withProc.newor (in Ruby 1.9 and up)Kernel#proc. If this is a problem for you, uselambdainstead:
aBlock = Proc.new do |x|
puts x
break if x == 3
puts x +2
end
aBlock.call(5)
# 5
# 7
aBlock.call(3)
# 3
# LocalJumpError: break from proc-closure
More seriously, you can’t usebreakto jump out of multiple loops at once. Once a loop has run, there’s no way to know whether it completed normally or by usingbreak.
The simplest way around this problem is to enclose the code you want to skip within acatchblock with a descriptive symbolic name. You can thenthrowthe corresponding symbol when you want to jump to the end of thecatchblock. This lets you skip out of any number of nested loops and method calls.
Thethrow/catchsyntax isn’t exception handling—exceptions use araise/rescuesyntax. This is a special flow control construct designed to replace the use of exceptions for flow control (as sometimes happens in Java programs). It’s a bit like an old-style global GOTO, capable of suddenly moving execution to a faraway part of your program. It keeps your code more readable than a GOTO, though, because it’s restricted: athrowcan only jump to the end of a correspondingcatchblock.
The best example of thecatch..throwsyntax is theFind.findfunction described in Recipe 6.12. When you pass a code block intoFind.find, it yields up every directory and file in a certain directory tree. When your code block is given a directory, it can stopfindfrom recursing into that directory by callingFind.prune, which throws a:prunesymbol. Usingbreakwould stop thefindoperation altogether; throwing a symbol letsFind.pruneknow to just skip one directory.
Here’s a simplified view of theFind.findandFind.prunecode:
def find(*paths)
paths.each do |p|
catch(:prune) do
# Process p as a file or directory...
end
# When you call Find.prune you'll end up here.
end
end
def prune
throw :prune
end
When you callFind.prune, execution jumps to immediately after thecatch(:prune)block.Find.findthen starts processing the next file or directory.
See Also
- Recipe 6.12, “Walking a Directory Tree”
- ri Find
Next: 7.9 Looping Through Multiple Iterables in Parallel >>
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 This article is excerpted from chapter eight of the Ruby Cookbook, written by Lucas Carlson and Leonard Richardson (O'Reilly, 2006; ISBN: 0596523696). Check it out today at your favorite bookstore. Buy this book now.
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